
Class ilS5_2__ 
Book '"0 74 
G(piglitl? 

CrOfXRIGHT DEFOSm 




gk,(.)ki;e kocers clakk. 
From a portrait by Jarvis, said to be from lift 



A History 



of the 



Mississippi Valley 

From its Discovery to the End 
of Foreign Domination. 



The Narrative of the Founding of an Empire, Shorn of 

Current Myth, and Enhvened by the Thrilling 

Adventures of Discoverers, Pioneers, 

Frontiersmen, Indian Fighters, 

and Home Makers. 



John R. Spears 

Author of ' Gold Diggings of Cape Horn," "■ History of Our Navy,'' '■'Our 
Navy in the War with Spain,'' " The American Slave Trade," etc., etc. 

IN COLLABORATION WITH 

A. H. Clark. 



WITH FAC-SIMILES, ILLUSTRATIONS OF HISTORIC PLACES, 
MAPS, AND PORTRAITS. 



New York. 

A. S. Clark, Publisher. 

1903. 






THE LiBWAnr OF 

coNu«ess. 

T*vo Copiet Rseeiveo 

AUG 27 1903 

Cttpyricht t.nt(y 

LASS «• XXc. No 

COPY Q. 



Copyright, 1903, by 
A. S. CLARK.. 



All rights reserved. 



Press of 

Braunworth & Co. 

Bookbinders and Printers 

Brooklyn, K. Y. 



THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
TO THE 

Hon. Theodore Roosevelt* 



AS A REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN 
AND HISTORIAN. 



INTRODUCTION. 



This work is to give an account of the things done 
in the Mississippi Valley during the period of foreign 
control. It is intended to be a narrative, not a critical, 
history. The writer has tried to tell about the achieve- 
ments of the men who traversed the Great Lakes in 
birch bark canoes, or walked through the passes of the 
Alleghanies, to reach the Mississippi Valley, and, when 
there, turned the mighty wilderness into the Garden of 
the World. 

Naturally the story begins with the heroic French- 
men who first learned the way to the Great Basin. In 
the days when the people of Massachusetts were es- 
tablishing a trading post on the Piscataqua River, New 
Hampshire, and the Virginians were sending an ex- 
ploring expedition to learn whether a river flowed into 
Delaware Bay, Jean Nicolet was making peace with the 
Indians on the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. While 
the Dutch of New Amsterdam were trading with the 
Indians at Albany, Grosseilliers and Radisson, paddled 
up the Ottawa River, (though the region was the haunt 
of the Iroquois), and carried trade goods to the Sioux 
on the banks of the Mississippi. When the British 
were taking New York from the Dutch, La Salle was 
stretching a line of forts from the St. Lawrence River 
toward the mouth of the Mississippi. 

Yet the nation from which the intrepid coureurs de 



ii Introduction. 

hois and explorers sprang produced also other pioneers 
whose manner of life was so far removed from that of 
the woods rangers as to furnish the most striking con- 
trast known to American history. For those were the 
days of Louis XIV. and XV., when women who were 
not queens ruled the Court of France. It was not "the 
brief season of the Canadian summer, the weary winter, 
the hazards of the crop," that brought failure to the 
French settlements. The settlements in Louisiana were 
in a kindly climate and they stood on the richest soil of 
the earth. The French failed at the south as well as 
the north because of the fungi spread by the shadow 
of the French Court. The beginning of the French 
Revolution was seen in America when the man with 
the axe drove the lace-bedecked vagabond carrying a 
sword from the lands west of the Alleghanies. 

In the meantime, both the French and the British 
had supplanted, more or less, another race of people — 
a race of red men known as Indians. In modern times, 
while the people of the United States have difficult race 
problems still in hand, it seems worth while remicmber- 
ing that because those red men were less developed than 
the white, they were the wards of the whites. The 
Indians were children, (they were often called so by 
the men who knew them best ) , and the white men were 
rightfully their guardians. It was a responsibility that 
was ignored and rudely thrust aside, but with such in- 
finitely distressful results as we shall see. 

The white men found the Indian passing rapidly 
from the life of a hunter to that of the agriculturist; 
but instead of aiding in the transition, the whites, by 
offering to buy furs, turned the red agriculturists back 



Introduction. iii 

to the hunter Hfe. They did worse; they created a 
market for human scalps. For one hundred and jfifty 
years the red men were, by every means incited to shed 
the blood of animals and men ; and then the white man 
looked upon them with horror and disgust because 
they were ready to fight for their hunting grounds. 

But while the white race as a whole were cultivat- 
ing the red thirst for blood, a few white men, known as 
Quakers and Moravians, were dealing with the red men 
on an entirely different basis. The Quakers and Mora- 
vians were subjected to many indignities and even out- 
rages for their peculiarity of regard for the less de- 
veloped red men. Historians have not failed to de- 
nounce them, and. frontiersmen have ever groped for 
words with which to express their disgust when think- 
ing of "Quaker sentiment." 

But the story of Gnadenhutten, written in blood 
that will not "out," proves beyond doubt or question 
that the tepees and huts of every red village in the land 
might have been turned into "Tents of Grace." 

It is a frightful fact that for every red man slain by 
by the whites, in the frontier wars, at least three whites 
were slain by the red. That fact is sufficient to damn 
the white policy, but it is not all; for because of the 
policy that was pursued by those who despised "Qua- 
ker sentiment," we are even now paying more than ten 
million dollars a year for the expenses of the Indian 
Bureau. Yet the fact remains that the cost of convert- 
ing the Delaware Indians of Gnadenhutten from the 
red savages, which they had been, to the stump-grub- 
bing farmers, which they became, was less than the 
waste of any one of hundreds of Indian raids. 



iv Introduction. 

While the people of the United States have the ves- 
tige of a race problem yet unsolved the story of Gnad- 
enhutten is the most instructive of all that are known to 
the annals of America. Let those who, with bobbing 
heads, mumble some sort of a creed on Sundays, and 
live the devil knows how the rest of the week, consider 
it with care, for to them it has a special significance. 

But this is by no means to withhold sympathy from 
the frontier Americans. Their migration w^as instinc- 
tive; it was due to the innate characteristics of a domi- 
nant race. It was inevitable, and in every way desira- 
ble. No one has a right to complain because they took 
the hunting grounds of the red man. The Indian 
should have been deprived of his hunting grounds to 
the last acre, wnth the utmost possible speed, and sup- 
plied with farms and play grounds instead. It was the 
manner of taking that cursed the frontiersmen, and 
they are to be pitied with an infinite pity. The effect 
of the evil policy on the frontiersmen is the important 
matter. They were the advance guard of the hosts of 
civilization and were sent forth to be slaughtered for the 
salvation and benefit of those who came after. Of 250 
men in Robertson's Settlement at Nashville, 229 died 
by violence inside of twelve years. 

In connection with the slaughter of the frontiers- 
men in the Mississippi Valley it is impossible to ignore 
the fact that the red men were, during the War of the 
Revolution and for twelve years after it, sicked on by 
British officers. That is a story to rouse the indigna- 
tion of every patriot, and, at first thought, one might 
say it should be glossed over in this era of growing 
good feeling between nations. On the other hand, 



Introduction. 



however, one should not forget that to gloss over is to 
lie. Moreover, the story is worth telling to show the 
tremendous contrast between that era and the present — 
a contrast that has been made possible by the develop- 
ment of Christian civilization, and the construction of 
an American fleet of unequalled war ships. 

And that is to say, indirectly, that nations have al- 
ways been, and are, bullies. They treat the powerful, 
and no others, with the kindliest consideration. Near 
the end of the Eighteenth Century we would not create 
a navy, but we built a ship of war, ballasted it with sil- 
ver dollars, and sent it to a Mediterranean pirate to 
purchase his favor. We permitted ourselves to be 
blackmailed by African corsairs. And in consequence 
of our craven spirit, the British held a firm grasp on the 
territory northwest of the Ohio River; the Spanish 
held Natchez and our southwest territory ; the French 
with their privateers and naval ships, swept our com- 
merce from the West Indies, and all three powers bul- 
lied and browbeat our Government officials at almost 
every interchange of communications. The American 
State Papers are instructive if unpleasant reading. At 
the beginning of the Twentieth Century we have in 
hand battleships with broadside guns of seven-inch and 
eight-inch caliber— battleships that are far and away su- 
perior to anything conceived elsewhere — and we have 
unruffled peace, with unopposed progress in the devel- 
opment of our civilization. 

If we were led by foolish policies in other days, it 
was because we were foolish, and not because of any 
lack of examples in right policies. The story of the 
work of George Rogers Clark in the Illinois country is 



vi Introduction. 

one of the most instructive in the war annals of the 
world. There were two methods of repelling the raids 
of the enemy in those days. The common way was to 
build a log fort, and when protected by its walls, to 
shoot every enemy that came in sight. It was a method 
that became national. We built forts at the Atlantic 
ports, and, as late as 1890, we built "coast defence" 
ships. The forts and coast defence ships were not 
wholly useless. Like the quills of the porcupine, they 
could prove very useful, under some circumstances. 
The porcupine method of repelling an enemy was held 
in high regard for many years by our people. 

But George Rogers Clark (an American born a 
hundred years ahead of his time, he), would have none 
of the porcupine policy. He saw that the way to pro- 
tect the frontier was to carry the war to the strongholds 
of the enemy. He took Kaskaskia and Vincennes. He 
gave the United States the Northwest Territory. He 
was urgent for men and means with which to take De- 
troit. Had his requests been heeded the raids on Ken- 
tucky would have ceased, and there would have been no 
trouble over the Northwest posts in after years. 

But because Clark's work was ignored, the broad 
territory which he had won had to be rewon, and 
*'Mad" Anthony Wayne was the man for the day. Of 
all the brigadiers of the Revolution, he is best worth 
memory, but it is not on his "mad" charges in the face 
of the enemy that his fame is grounded. Those, indeed, 
were splendid, but that parade of his men with their 
hair neatly powdered before the attack on Stony Point 
is significant; so is the further fact that every dog with- 
in three miles of the Point was killed before the attack. 



Introduction. vii 

But of all that this man did, nothing will be remem- 
bered longer than the fact that when he came to recon- 
quer the region Clark had won, he trained more than a 
thousand men of his legion until they could load and fire 
their rifles with precision while charging at full speed 
on the enemy. Anthony Wayne was the best drill mas- 
ter the American army ever had. 

As said, this work is to give an account of the things 
done in the Great Valley, but necessarily a record had 
to be made of those proceedings elsewhere by which the 
destinies of the Valley were influenced. The Spanish, 
who were really the first to see the Valley, and who at 
the end of the Seven Years War, obtained New Or- 
leans and the region between the Rockies and the Mis- 
sissippi, took possession of Natchez and a large section 
of American soil during the War of the Revolution. 
They were determined, after the war was ended, not 
only to hold it, but to grasp all the unsettled part of the 
Great Valley, regardless of American claims. In this 
matter the French Government earnestly supported 
them, and the diplomatic complications that grew out 
of this condition of affairs, are interesting. In their 
efforts to "cinch" the territory the Spanish amuse or 
exasperate the student of history according to his men- 
tal attitude toward their peculiar characteristics. But 
the settlers of the Great Valley, in the days of the Span- 
ish complications, never found the situation amusing, 
and the fact that the Spanish were not swept out of the 
Mississippi Valley by a flood tide of indignant back- 
woodsmen must ever remain a matter of wonder and 
pride to the American patriot. 

By unwavering persistence the Americans foiled 



viii Introduction. 

the Spanish shufflings, evasions and obstinacy, so that a 
time came when Spain traded the great Louisiana ter- 
ritory back to France. The day of its salvation v^as 
then close at hand. Napoleon ruled France, and for a 
brief period, he thought to regain for her all the splen- 
did region on which La Salle had filed the French 
claim. He bought the Louisiana territory; he thought 
to take the land east of the Mississippi with an army 
of 10,000 men. But when the eagle alighted before 
him with one naked claw representing 30,000 "Prime 
Riflemen," and the other offering him a purse, his vision 
was cleared. The transfer of Louisiana to the United 
States was made through the hatred of the British and 
the fear of America. He prophesied that the valley of 
the Mississippi would make the United States a "mar- 
itime rival" of the British, and a century after his 
prophesy was made, the greatest transatlantic lines of 
steamships are controlled by capitalists whose wealth 
has been drawn from traffic originating in the Great 
Basin. But, curiously enough, the development which 
Napoleon hoped for has only served to draw the En- 
glish-speaking rivals closer together, instead of driving 
them apart. 

It is a long story, this of the Mississippi Valley, but 
from the year when Grosseiliers and Radisson first 
traded for beaver skin on the bank of the upper river, 
until the day when the Gridiron Flag, hoisted at New 
Orleans, covered the whole Great Basin, it is a story 
that can be summed up in one word — JVork. From the 
first to the last, the men whose names are memorable 
in the history of the Valley, whether they were traders 
like the courcurs de hois looking for profit ; or empire 



Introduction. 



IX 



founders, like La Salle, looking for power; or migra- 
tors, like the hosts that followed the Ohio and the Wil- 
derness Road, looking for home sites; or statesmen like 
Monroe and Livingston, looking for the good of the 
Nation, all have been men who could and who would 
work. Work is the one word emblazoned on the es- 
cutcheon of the people of the Great Basin, 

To show a part of what work has accomplished in 
the affairs of a mighty region is the chief object of this 
book, and it is therefore offered to the growing host 
of good Americans who see clearly that 

"The All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the 
verb To Do" 




CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. On the Brim of the Great Basin i 

II. First Exploration of the Mississippi River 13 

III. La Salle and Louisiana 25 

IV. From La Salle to New Orleans 51 

V. Indians of the Mississippi Valley 75 

VI. Work of the French in the Valley 103 

VII. The French Expelled from the Valley, Part i. . iig 

VIII. The French Expelled from the Valley, Part 2. . 133 

IX. The Spanish in the Great Valley 157 

X. PoNTiAc's War as Seen in the Valley 171 

XI. Crossing the Range 183 

XII. Lord Dunmore's War 209 

XIII. The Home Makers IN Kentucky 223 t 

XIV. On the Frontier during the Revolution 247 

XV. The Work of Geo. Rogers Clark 267 

XVI. As THE War Dragged On 287 

XVII. Gnadenhutten 293 

XVIII. Fighting that Follow^ed Gnadenhutten 303 

XIX. The Frontiersmen at King's Mountain 313 

XX. Frontier Home and Civil Life in War Time 319 

XXI. Fighting to Possess Land Already Won 331 

XXII. In the Southwest after the Revolution 355 

XXIII. The Nation Gets Its Own 369 

XXIV. The Garden of America for Americans Only 379 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Pen and ink sketches, head and tail pieces, chapter headings, 
both original and reproductions, by Miss E. S. Clark. 

George Rogers Clark Frontispiece 

From a portrait by Jarvis. 

PAGE 

Indian Braves in Costume ix 

From Catlin's Indians. 

John Jay (facing) i ^ 

From a portrait by Wilkinson, London, 1783. 

Heading of Chap. I., Indian Throwing Tomahawk ... i 

View of the Three Great Divisions of the United States 8 

River St. Lawrence lo 

River St. Lawrence, showing "La Chine" Rapids, early 
French settlements, etc. 

Jean Baptiste Talon 12 

From portrait by Hamel. 

Heading of Chap. II., Winter Costume of Indian . . 13 

Eastern Portion of Joliet's Map, 1674 I5 

Central Portion of Joliet's Map, 1674 21 

Marquette's Map, 1681 23 

Block House at Lexington, Ky 24 

Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (facing) 25 ^y'^ 

Heading of Chap. Ill 25 

The building of the "Griffin." 



xiv List of Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Sketch of Niagara River, Showing Ancient Portages . 30 

From "Bouchette British Dominions in North Ameri- 
ca." 

Fort Niagara 32 

From the "Portfolio," 1813. 

Map of Franquelin 1684 44 

Indian Chief's Headdress 50 

From Catlin's Indians. 

Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville (facing) . . 51 
From an original portrait. 

Heading of Chap. IV 51 

Indian on horseback from Catlin. 

De Lisle, Map of the Course of the Mississippi 1703 . . 52 

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise De Pompadour. . 56 
From a portrait by Harding. 

Moll's Map, 1710 58 

Joutel's Map, 1713 65 

Louis XV., King of France 70 

From a contemporary print. 

New Orleans, 1728 73 

Louis XIV., King of France (facing) 75 

From a contemporary portrait. 

Heading of Chap. V 75 

Death of Vincennes, from Bancroft's United States. 

Location of Indian Tribes East of the Mississippi ... 82 
From Bancroft's United States. 

Indian Mounds in Ohio 84 

From Atwater's Antiquities of Ohio, 



List of Illustrations. xv 

PAGE 

Ancient Indian Fortifications at Newark, Ohio ... 90 
From The Family Magazine, 1843. 

A Typical Indian Village 96 

From a painting by Bierstadt. 

John Law, Projector of the Mississippi Scheme (facing) 103 
From a Contemporary print. 

Heading of Chapter VI 103 

A frontier greeting. 

A Portion of Labat's Map, 1722 105 

Tail-Piece, an Indian Visit 118 

King Philip (facing) 119 

From an Original by Paul Revere. 

Heading of Chap. VII 119 

Example of a Log House of the Better Class. 

Map of Celoron's Expedition 128 

Fac-Simile of one of Celoron's Lead Plates 129 

George Washington at Twenty-five Years of Age 
(facing) 133 

From Irving' s Washington, 1st edition. 
Heading of Chap. VIII., Fort Du Quesne 1755 .... 133 

Frederick the Great 142 

From the Encylopedia Londinensis. 
The Braddock Campaign 144 

F^om Bancroft's United States. 

Fall of Braddock 146 

From "Battles of the United States." 

Scene of Braddock's Defeat 148 

From Irving's Ldfe of Washington, 1st edition. 



xvi List of Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Tail-Piece, Braddock's Defeat 156 

From a contemporary copper plate, the legend of which 
describes Braddock as being in the cart, and Washington 
the figure to the right. 

Hernando De Soto (facing) 157 

From an early portrait. 

Heading of Chap. IX., Fort Pitt, 1759 157 

Don Antonio De Ulloa, Gov. of La., 1764 163 

From an engraving by Scriven. 

Sir William Johnson (facing) 171 \/ 

From the London Magazine, 1756. 
Heading of Chap. X 171 

Modern remains of Fort Pitt. 

Major Robert Rogers, Indian Scout, etc 173 

From a London portrait of 1770. 
Daniel Boone (facing) 183 

From an original portrait by Harding. 

Heading of Chap. XI 183 

Signatures to "Walpole's Grant," afterwards included 
in the "Ohio Company." 

Map of Ohio Land Grants 190 

From the map of Lewis, 1796. ^ 

George III., King of England 193 

From a portrait painted in 1760. 

An Indian Surprise 204 

From a painting by F. O. C. Darley. 

Tail- Piece, Ancient Manner of Loading a Rifle .... 208 

Simon Kenton, the Companion of Boone (facing) . . . 209 
From a portrait by L. W. Morgan. 



List of Illustrations. xvii 

PAGE 

Heading of Chap. XII., Cornstalk's Tomahawk .... 209 
Which is still preserved. 

Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison's Residence 220 

From an early lithograph. 

Ma J. Gen. William Henry Harrison 220 

From an original portrait by J. R. Lambdin. 

Benjamin Franklin (facing) 223 u^ 

From a portrait in the Portfolio, 1818. 

Heading of Chap. XIII., A Call to Arms 223 

A Portion of Filson's Map 1785, Showing Vicinity of 
Harrodsburg 229 

Another Portion of Filson's Map, Including Lexington 231 

More of Filson's Map, with Louisville as the Centre . 233 

Andrew Jackson 235 

From a portrait by Jarvis. 

Mrs. Andrew Jackson 236 

Taken from a portrait, made shortly after ball given in 
honor of her husband. 

A Hunter Armed with a "Deckhard" Rifle 238 

From an engraving by Sartain. 

Tail-Piece Peace and War 246 

Outacite, a Cherokee Chief (facing) 247 X 

From Church's Indian Wars. 

Heading of Chap. XIV., Block House at Fort Stanwix 247 

The Massacre of the Family of Johanas Dietz (1775?) . 252 
From a contemporary broadside. 

George Rogers Clark (facing) 267 ^ 

From a portrait from life in possession of Vincennes 
University, Ind. 



xviii List of Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Heading of Chap. XV., Fort Wayne in 1794 267 

From a contemporary sketch. 

Col. George Croghan 274 

From the Portfolio. 

Indian Scalp Dance 282 

From The Family Magazine, 1844. 

Col. Francis Vigo 284 

From the Magazine of Western History. 

George Washington at Fifty-six Years of Age (facing) 287 
From a portrait by Geoffroy, Paris. 

Heading of Chap. XVI., Frontier Block House .... 287 

William Penn 292 

Heading of Chap. XVII. , From West's Painting of the 
Penn Treaty 293 

Indian Monument at Gnadenhutten 300 

Col. Aaron Ogden (facing) 303 

From a portrait by A. B. Durand. 

Heading of Chap. XVIII, Fort Lexington in 1782 . . . 303 

Now Lexington, Ky. 

York on Lake Ontario in 1812 308 

From a plate in The Portfolio. 

Marquis Cornwallis (facing) 312 

From a portrait by Copley. 

Heading of Chap. XIX., Stone Masking Grave of Col. 
Ferguson at Kings Mountain 3^3 

Plan of the Action at Kings Mountain 316 

From Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee. 

Burial Place of Col. Ferguson 31S 

From American Historical Record. 



List of Illustrations. xix 

PAGE ^^ 
Gen. Isaac Shelby (facing) 319 

From an engraving by Durand. 

Heading of Chap. XX., Pioneers en Route 319 

Brig. Gen. Anthony Wayne (facing) 331 ^^ 

From a pencil sketch by Col. John Trumbull. 

Heading of Chapter XXI., Wayne Drilling His Men . 331 

A Portion of the Map of Lewis, Showing Fort Wayne 
AND Vicinity 1706 334 

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France 337 

From a contemporary print. 

Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair 338 

From a drawing by Col. John Trumbull. 

Map of Ohio, made by Gen. Rufus Putnam in 1804 . . . 340 

Another Portion of the Map of Lewis 1796, Showing 
Position of Various Forts 348 

Battle of Fallen Timber 350 

From "Battles of America." 

Plan of the Battle of Fallen Timber 353 

James Madison (facing) 355 ^ 

From original portrait by Stuart. 

Heading of Chap. XXIL, Fort Washington (Now Cincin- 
nati) IN 1790 355 

Tail-Piece, Niagara Falls from the Earliest Known 
Print , 368 

William Charles Cole Claiborne (facing) 369 v " 

Heading of Chap. XXIIL, Campus Martius, at the Pres- 
ent Site of Marietta, Ohio 369 

Edmund Charles Genet 370 

From a painting by Fouquet. 



XX List of Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Thomas Pinckney 373 

From The Portfolio. 
A School Boy's Map of the United States in 1796 . . . 374 
From Morse's Elements of Geography. 

James Edward Oglethorpe 376 

From a contemporary engraving. 

Tail-Piece, A Possible Picture of Rev. Samuel Doak . 378 

Robert R. Livingston (facing) 379 

From Irving's Life of Washington. 

Heading of Chap. XXIV., The Flag Covers the Entire 
Valley 379 

Thomas Jefferson 385 

From a plate contemporary with Miss, affairs. 

James Monroe 39° 

From a portrait by Vanderlyn. 

Thomas B. Robertson 39^ 

From a portrait by St. Memim. 
Tail-Piece, "A New Home, Who'll Follow?" .... 401 




^tnts itf renxibxtt, titxitt^ij inraitgltt in nntitttt itags f 
S^lls itf tt iebx sinut henris, that f ttitgitt nnii ^hit 
jwr« bni^ placcit titeittf nt tltctr rtittntrg's siit^ f 
maw tJtat ts ttxxt mxjijcit b§ iuhat kt rcaiis, 
(JEJ^jit takes tt0t fire at titcir Jjerotr heeiis, 
^nittixrtitg nf titc bbssinjs of tije brato, 
Js itasu in kinit, anit bixtn ttx lie a slaite/' 




JOHN JAY. 

Daniel Webster said of him: "Wlien tlie spotless ermine of the judicial 

robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothini,' less spotless than itself." 

This portrait was engraved by Wilkinson, London, 1783. 




ON THE BRIM OF THE GREAT BASIN. 



The First Coureur-de-Bois and His Fate — Adventures of 
Jean Nicolet — An Ambassador with two Pistols — 
The Courageous Traders Who First Reached the 
Mississippi — A Trading Station that Was a "First 
Chance" for Warriors as Well as Peaceful Indians — 
The Notable Manner in Which the La Chine Rapids 
Were Named. 

The connected historical story of the Mississippi 
valley begins w^ith the training of the first coureur de 
hois, Etienne Brule, for it was through the enterprising, 
adventure-loving spirit of this notable class of French- 
men, the coureurs de hois, that civilized people were 
first led to make permanent settlements within the 
Great Basin. The Spanish under De Soto had discov- 
ered, it is true, the Mississippi in 1541 (as shall be told 

I 



A History of the 

further on), but nothing came of that expedition save 
only as the story of it served to inspire one of the great- 
est of French explorers, more than a hundred years 
later, the Sieur de la Salle. 

It was Samuel de Champlain who made a coureur 
de hois of Etienne Brule — who, in fact, originated the 
coureur de hois system of exploration, Champlain 
founded the city of Quebec in 1608, making of it, at 
first, a fur-trading station, but hoping that in the end it 
would become the capital of a new great French empire. 
In the year 1609 he discovered Lake Champlain, while 
on the war path with an Algonquin party, and there, 
in 1 610, not far from the St. Lawrence, he captured an 
Iroquois brush fort, and killed all but one of the garri- 
son that numbered 100. 

In celebrating this victory, of 1610, Iroquet, the In- 
dian chief, gave a young savage named Savignon to the 
French as a pledge of future friendship and Champlain 
in return gave Etienne Brule to Iroquet. 

So far as the records show Etienne Brule was the 
first Frenchman to join the Sauvages — the wild men of 
America, and fully to adopt their manner of life. He 
became one of, as well as one with, them, but he was 
nevertheless a Frenchman still, and kept his eyes open 
for his own advantage, and for that of his country. He 
became a woods ranger and trader on his own account, 
and an interpreter and ambassador among the Indians 
for the benefit of his countrymen. 

Save only as he showed to Champlain the advan- 
tage of having men trained in that fashion among the 
Indians, Etienne Brule did but little to lead his 
countrymen toward the Mississippi Valley. There is 

2 



Mississippi Valley. 

no record of his having so much as heard of the great 
stream, though he did, very hkely, v^ander as far west 
as Lake Superior, for he said he was on the shores of a 
great lake where native copper was found in nuggets, 
and he brought a nugget to Quebec to prove the story. 
He might have accomphshed more, for his enterprise 
was praiseworthy, but he got in trouble with some Hu- 
rons, east of Lake Huron, presumably over some red 
sweetheart, and they killed and ate him. And that was 
the fate of not a few woods rangers who came after 
him. 

In the meantime another French youth, Jean Nico- 
let, had come to join Champlain. He arrived in 1618. 
Because Brule had been serviceable while living among 
the Indians, Champlain determined to give Nicolet a 
similar training, and for nine years he lived with the 
Indians to the eastv/ard of Lake Huron, "undergoing 
such fatigues as none but eye witnesses can conceive; 
he often passed seven or eight days without food, and 
once, full seven weeks with no other nourishment than 
a little bark from the trees," as an old Jesuit "Relation" 
says. He had there "his own separate cabin and house- 
hold, and fishing and trading for himself." 

In 1633 Nicolet returned to the St. Lawrence settle- 
ments, and in 1634 was sent to explore the region be- 
yond Lake Michigan. The Indians had been telling of 
the wonders of that country ever since Champlain ar- 
rived among them, and Nicolet had returned with a 
fLxed belief that either the Chinese or the Japanese came 
to that country every year to trade. At any rate it was 
a people, the Indians said, that used huge wooden ca- 
noes instead of little portable canoes of birch bark, and 

3 



A History of the 

the French thought the huge wooden canoes must be 
ships. 

Nicolet started on July 7, 1634, with a party of In- 
dians and priests who were bound for Georgian Bay 
(p. 99, vol. viii., Thwaite's edition of Jesuit "Rela- 
tions"), and the party was thirty days on the road. 

With seven Huron Indians for company, Nicolet 
went first to the Sault Sainte Marie, a noted gathering 
place for western tribes, but finding no Asiatics there, 
nor any one that looked like them, he paddled around 
to Green Bay, on the northwest corner of Lake Michi- 
gan, where a still more populous region was found, be- 
cause of the wild rice growing in the lakes, and in the 
still waters beyond. 

Here a real test of Nicolet's ability as an ambassa- 
dor was to be made. For the Indians were utter stran- 
gers to him and his Hurons, and their language was 
wholly different. 

First of all he landed and "fastened two sticks in 
the earth, and hung gifts thereon, so as to relieve these 
tribes from the notion of mistaking them for enemies." 
When the presents had been discovered and carried 
away, a lone Huron went in search of the tribe to say 
by the sign language that a man of the people who man- 
ufactured the presents w^ished to come and deliver 
many more things of the same kind. This message was 
kindly received and "they dispatched several young 
men to meet the manitouriniou — that is to say, 'the 
wonderful man.' " 

"The news of Nicolet's coming quickly spread to 
the villages round about, and there assembled four or 
five thousand men.'* Nicolet dressed himself in "a 

4 



Mississippi Valley. 

grand robe of China damask, all strewn with flowers 
and birds of many colors." Then with a pistol in each 
hand, he approached the great throng, fired off blank 
cartridges in his weapons, and finally gravely seated 
himself in the place left vacant for him. 

The ''squaws and children fled screaming," but the 
warriors were so highly pleased that they gave him a 
feast in which, as he was careful to report, no less than 
120 beavers were eaten. 

From Green Bay Nicolet went up Fox River to the 
Mascoutin Indians, whose language he understood. Of 
them he learned that no Asiatics came to the region. 
The "strange people" of whom he had heard were 
Naduesiu (Sioux) Indians, and their large wooden ca- 
noes were dugouts — big logs cut to canoe shape. They 
lived on a great river, not a great sea, and the Indians 
said Nicolet could reach this great river by a journey of 
three days from where he was then encamped. It is not 
unreasonable to suppose that Nicolet went on to visit 
this Sioux tribe, for in the Jesuit "Relation" for 1640, 
the writer gives a list of the Indian nations around the 
upper lakes, which includes the Sioux, and says of the 
Hst: 

"Sieur Nicolet has given me the names of these na- 
tions, zvhicJi he hiniself has visited, for the most part in 
their own country." 

The next to explore the region south and west of 
Lake Superior were Menard Chouart des Grosseilliers 
and Pierre Esprit Radisson, Grosseilliers, as a servant 
of the Jesuit missionaries, was in 1645, employed 
among the Hurons near Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. 
He returned to the St. Lawrence settlements in 1646, 

5 



A History of the 

and remained there until 1654, when the call of the 
wilds — the memory of unrestrained freedom and the 
beckoning smiles of the Indian maidens — could be no 
longer resisted. In company with Sieur Radisson, a 
close personal friend (he had married Radisson's sis- 
ter), Grosseilliers started for the region where Nicolet 
had seen 120 beavers served at an impromptu feast. 

This journey was one of the most daring known to 
the history of exploration in any country. For the 
Iroquois, since the days of their defeats by Champlain, 
had procured (of the Dutch), and learned to use fire 
arms. With these new weapons they had crossed the 
lakes and literally swept the Huron and Algonquin vil- 
lages from the face of the earth. Even the Esquimo on 
the shores of Hudson's Bay had felt the power of the 
Iroquois warriors, while the French themselves had 
been slaughtered beneath the walls built to guard Mon- 
treal, Three Rivers and Quebec. The whole region 
between the St. Lawrence and the Laurentian Moun- 
tains, the Saguenay River and Lake Huron, was, in 
1654, left to the undisturbed possession of the furry 
and feathered animals, save only as Iroquois bands con- 
tinually prowled to and fro along the streams. 

So complete had been the disaster wrought by the 
Iroquois — so terrified were the Indians of all other 
tribes — that during the year 1653 not a single skin was 
brought to Montreal, and *'in the Quebec warehouse 
there is nothing but poverty." 

Nevertheless on August 6, 1654, Grosseilliers and 
Radisson paddled away from Montreal and disappeared 
up the Ottawa. The daring of the Yankee pioneers 
who, like Boone and Robertson, plunged alone into the 

6 



A History of the 

wilds has been praised in the highest terms, and with 
good reason. But the dangers of one man travelHng 
alone through the forest were far less than those of 
these two men paddling with trade goods up an open 
waterway that was the regular highway of the enemy. 

On leaving Montreal, Grosseillier and Radisson 
promised to return in a year. They failed to do so and, 
naturally, they were mourned as dead. But at the end 
of August, 1656, they returned accompanied by fifty 
canoes laden with furs. "Their arrival," says the Jesuit 
Relation, "caused the country universal joy," and they 
"landed amid the stunning noise of cannon." 

In 1659 these two woods rangers went again to the 
wilds of Lake Superior and they came back safe on 
August 21, 1660. They had "wintered with the Nation 
of the Ox" (i. e., the Sioux), and had visited a remnant 
of the Hurons whom they found living on "a beautiful 
river, large, wide, deep, and worthy of comparison 
with our great river St. Lawrence." (vol. xlv., pp. 
163, 235; Thwaite's edition, Jesuit "Relations"). 

Radisson, in an account which was printed after- 
wards, says : "We went to the great river * * * 
which we believe runs towards Mexico." The "Rela- 
tions" just quoted adds that "our Frenchmen visited 
the forty villages of zvhich this (Sioux) nation is com- 
posed." 

Any unprejudiced reading of these "Relations," and 
of Radisson's account, shows conclusively that these 
two intrepid woods rangers were on the Mississippi 
river. 

From the Jesuit "Relation" of 1656-7 it appears 
that a Jesuit priest may have passed over the brim of 

7 



Mississippi Valley. 

the Mississippi Valley still earlier. This "Relation" re- 
cords "some peculiarities of the Iroquois country" as 
observed by Jesuit missionaries sent to the Onondaga 
region under the lead of Father Francois le Mercier. 
One of them saw a spring from which flowed a sub- 
stance that "ignites like brandy, and boils up in bubbles 
of flame when fire is applied to it. * * * Our sav- 
ages use it to grease their heads and bodies." It is 
believed that this was a petroleum spring in Alleghany 
county, New York, the water of which flows to the 
Alleghany river. 

In 1665 Father Allouez established a mission at a 
place called La Pointe, on Lake Superior, near where 
Ashland, Wisconsin, now stands, and while there he 
wrote of the great river under the name it now bears — 
"Messipi" — that being the Indian word meaning great 
water. 

And then came La Salle. Rene Robert Cavalier, 
Sieur de la Salle was born in Rouen, France, on No- 
vember 21, 1643. He attended a Jesuit school there 
until 15, and then went to Paris and prepared to join 
the Order ; but after taking preliminary vows left them, 
and, according to the best authorities, came to Montreal 
in the spring of 1666. 

Montreal was then the frontier settlement of New 
France, and the prowling Iroquois often murdered 
Frenchmen within the shadows of its forts. Neverthe- 
less La Salle, having a small capital, bought a tract of 
land at the head of the rapids now called La Chine. 
Here he laid out a palisaded village, and built for his 
own use a comfortable log house. He intended, at that 
time, to make a considerable settlement and a trading 

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A History of the 

station on his land ; and it was then one of the best sites 
in America, for such an enterprise. 

For his house stood at the foot of a long still water 
In the St. Lawrence and it was but a step to the Ottawa. 
Whether the Indians and courcurs dc hois came with 
their furs by one route or the other, La Salle offered 
them what our mine saloonkeeper called the "First 
Chance." 

At the same time, however, this was probably the 
most dangerous spot in New France, for if the fur 
sellers found there their "first chance" so, too, might 
the blood-thirsty Iroquois. It was characteristic of the 
man to select the most advantageous point regardless 
of its dangers. 

La Salle, as eventually appeared, had a mind for 
other work than that of trading hatchets and brandy 
for furs. In the fall of 1668 some Seneca Indians 
came to his station, remained with him on the most 
friendly terms all winter and told him of a great 
river to the south of their country which ran away to 
the west and south, and finally emptied into the salt 
sea. 

"La Salle's imagination took fire." He supposed 
the river emptied into the Pacific. In the spring he 
sold out all his holdings, went to Quebec, applied for a 
commission to go exploring, and got it. It was in the 
days when Jean Baptiste Talon was "Intendant" — a 
sort of deputy governor of Canada — and Talon was 
determined that "the lilies of France must go wher- 
ever man could carry them." 

La Salle hoped to carry them to China, by the way 
of the Seneca's great river, and he was willing to pay 

9 



Mississippi Valley. 

his own expenses. He was therefore just the kind of 
a man that Talon was looking for. 

How La Salle bought an outfit that loaded four 
canoes, and hired fourteen men, and on July 6, 1669, 
started for Lake Ontario need not be told in detail. 
But it is worth mention that at the head of Lake On- 
tario he met a woods ranger named Louis Joliet who 
had been hunting for Etienne Brule's copper mine on 
the shores of Lake Superior. 

The copper mine was not found, but Joliet had come 
down from Mackinac by way of the Detroit river and 
Lake Erie, and was the first white man to pass that 
way. 

From the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle went to 
Onondaga, where he obtained a guide, and thence to a 
point on a branch of the Ohio river supposed to be "six 
or seven leagues from Lake Erie." This he followed 
into the "the Beautiful River" itself, and eventually 
reached the falls where Louisville now stands. 

At this point he was obliged to turn back because 
his men had deserted him. It was an ominous be- 
ginning of a great life work. 

La Salle's reception when he returned to Montreal 
alone, was humiliating. In establishing the post at the 
head of the rapids above Montreal he had incurred 
the bitter enmity of all the traders doing business from 
Montreal to Quebec. They cowered in the shadow 
of the forts; he had dared to build his store leagues 
away in the wilderness. His bravery made conspicu- 
ous their cowardice; his position enabled him to se- 
cure the very cream of the trade. The enmity had been 
intense, but now, here was the Sieur de la Salle, back 

10 



■■( 



A History of the 

from a voyage in which he had hoped to reach China, 
baffled, and not with a franc left of all that he had 
obtained from the sale of his well-located trading sta- 
tion. The tumble of water over which his lost home 
looked was the only China he had discovered. It was 
a good joke on La Salle. They would, and they did, 
call those rapids China — "La Chine" — to irritate him. 
And as La Chine they are known to this day. 

Nevertheless, while the traders sneered, Jean Bap- 
tiste Talon, the intendant, saw that the man who would 
sink his all in such an expedition, was worthy of con- 
sideration ; and he enabled the discomfited La Salle 
to try once more. But for this expedition, few words 
will suffice. La Salle went up to the head of Lake 
Michigan and crossed to the water shed of the Mis- 
sissippi. The account of the journey says he went 
to a river "which flowed from east to west" — presum- 
ably the Kankakee. He followed it until it was joined 
by another river coming from the northwest. This 
was probably the Des Plaines. La Salle, like Grosseil- 
liers and Radisson, viewed a part of the great valley, 
but so far he had accomplished nothing toward set- 
tling it. 

Comparisons are instructive, however odious. In 
1634 when Champlainsent Nicolet to visit the Indians 
on the west side of Lake Michigan, the inhabitants 
of Massachusetts thought they had shown great en- 
terprise in establishing a trading station on the Pis- 
cataqua river where Dover, New Hampshire, now 
stands; while the Virginia settlers had recently sent 
an exploring expedition to learn whether a river emp- 
tied into Delaware Bay. 

1 1 




JEAN liAPTISTE TAH'N. 
Intendant of New France. From the portrait by Hamel. 




II 



FIRST EXPLORATION OF THE AIISSISSIPPI. 

The Facts about Joliet's Expedition Down the Mississippi 
with Father Marquette as Chaplain of the Com- 
pany — The Kindly Illinois Indians and Their Calu- 
met — Two Views of a River "Monster" — Tennessee 
Indians Whom White Men Had Visited — Fate of 
the Valiant Quapaws — A Far-Reaching Mishap to 
Joliet. 

To the honor of Jean Baptiste Talon, Intendant 
of Canada from 1665 to 1675, (save for a few 
months), be it remembered that he not only saw the 
value of the broad western domain where Grosseil- 
lier and Radisson first carried French trade, but he 
took steps to possess it. 

In 1670, when he sent La Salle on the voyage by 
the way of Lake Michigan and the Illinois, toward 

13 



A History of the 

the Mississippi, he sent Daumont de Saint-Lusson to 
Lake Superior to hunt for the copper mine that Jo- 
Het had failed to find, and further than that to take 
formal possession of the upper lake region in the 
name of the king. Saint Lusson was in command, but 
the experienced Joliet was guide, and without mishap 
they reached the Sault Sainte Marie, erected a cross 
on a hill, blessed it, sang the Vexilla Regis, planted a 
cedar post to which was attached a metal plate bear- 
ing the royal arms, sang the Exaudiat, and then 
Saint Lusson, with a sword in one hand and a fresh 
sod in the other, uttered a fierce gust of words by 
which he said he took possession not only of the up- 
per great lakes, but of "all countries, rivers, lakes and 
streams contiguous and adjacent thereunto," includ- 
ing not only those his countrymen had already dis- 
covered, but "those which may be discovered here- 
after." 

This was done on May 5, 1671. It had taken the 
French government thirty-seven years to follow the 
trail of Nicolet as far as the Sault Sainte Marie. 

On the return of this party to the lower St. Law- 
rence, Talon determined on one more exploration of 
the region; and Louis Joliet was chosen to lead the 
expedition. 

In order to show that Louis Joliet and not some 
other man was chosen to lead, we will quote the orig- 
inal sources of information. It is a matter of great 
importance because it was this expedition that did 
first explore the Mississippi. 

Among the Paris documents printed in volume ix. 
of the "New York Colonial Manuscripts" are found 

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Mississippi Valley. 

(pp. 90-94) some "Extracts of the Memoirs of Mon- 
sieur de Frontenac to the Minister," Frontenac be- 
ing Governor of Canada and Colbert the "minister." 
On page 92 is this sentence regarding an act of the 
Governor: "He has Hkewise judged it expedient for 
the service to send Sieur Johet to the country of the 
Maskouteins, to discover the South Sea, and the great 
river they call the Mississippi." 

In volume Iviii. of Thwaite's edition of the Jesuit 
^'Relations," pp. 93, 95, is a letter from Father Claude 
Dablon, the Superior of the Order at Quebec, dated 
August I, 1674, which says that "two years ago" it 
was "decided that it was important * * to ascer- 
tain into what sea falls the great river, about which 
the Sauvages relate so much. For this purpose they 
could not have selected a person endowed with bet- 
ter qualities than is Sieur Joliet, who has travelled 
much in that region, and has acquitted himself in this 
task with all the ability that could be desired." 

In the introduction which Father Claude Dablon 
WTote to Marquette's journal of this expedition, as 
printed in the "Relations," vol. lix., pp. 87, 89, are 
these words: 

"In the year 1673, Monsieur The Count de Fron- 
tenac, Our Governor, and Monsieur Talon then Our 
Intendant, Recognizing The Importance of this dis- 
covery * * * these gentlemen, I say, appointed 
at the same time for this undertaking Sieur Joliet, 
whom they considered very fit for so great an enter- 
prise; and they were well pleased that Father Mar- 
quette should be of the party." 

Let there be no mistake about Father Marquette. 
15 




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1 



A History of the 

He was the friend and companion as well as the as- 
sistant of Joliet. They had often consulted about 
this expedition before Joliet obtained his com- 
mission, and it had been fully understood that Joliet 
should take him along. But one might as well give 
the credit of the battle of Manila to the chaplain of 
the flagship as to give ]\Iarquette the credit of the 
first exploration of the ]\Iississippi River. The man 
of the expedition was Joliet. And yet a statue has been 
erected in the capitol at Washington to the honor of 
the chaplain. 

With his outfit in two canoes, and five able cou- 
reiirs de bo is to help him, Louis Joliet left Quebec on 
an unnamed day in the fall of 1672, and on December 
8 arrived at the mission of St. Ignace, in the strait of 
Alackinac, where he found Father Marquette and the 
Indian converts celebrating the feast of the Immacu- 
late Conception. 

At this mission the winter was passed, because the 
journey was to be made by water; but on "The 17th 
of May, 1673, we started," and "the joy that we felt 
animated our courage and rendered the labor of pad- 
dling from morning till night agreeable." So wrote 
Father Marquette. "We were going to seek unknown 
countries." They crossed Lake Michigan and visited 
the wild rice Indians on Green Bay, who, when they 
learned the object of the expedition, "were greatly 
surprised." The route lay through "Nations who 
never show mercy to strangers," they said ; moreover 
"the great river" was full of monsters that destroyed 
canoes and men together, and there was one particular 
demon — when the Indians spoke of him the mere 

16 



Mississippi Valley. 

thought made them tremble. And then there was the 
heat. Even if the Frenchmen's medicine enabled 
them to dodge the devils the heat would kill them 
without doubt. 

But Joliet had heard Indians talk in that manner 
before, and he soon passed up the Fox River, and fin- 
ally reached a village composed of Miamies, Kicka- 
poes and Ivlascoutens. A most beautiful country was 
that around the village. "From an eminence upon 
which it is placed one beholds on every side prairies, 
extending further than the eye can see, interspersed 
with groves or with lofty trees. The soil is very fer- 
tile and yields much Indian corn. The sauvages ga- 
ther quantities of plums and grapes." 

It is a far cry to the day of Joliet, but the region 
is as beautiful and as productive now as when it de- 
lighted the eyes of these explorers, for it is that lying 
west and south of Lake Winnebago. 

The kindly Indians gave the party two guides who 
showed the way "to the portage of 2,700 paces" to "a 
river which discharged into the Mississippi," and 
helped them to carry their canoes across the land. Por- 
tage City, Wisconsin, a railroad centre of importance, 
now stands on this crest between the waters of the 
great lakes and those of the Mississippi. 

After "a new devotion to the blessed Virgin im- 
maculate," they launched forth on the Wisconsin river, 
which they called the Meskousing. It was "full of 
islands covered with vines." The banks were of "fer- 
tile land, diversified with woods, prairies and hills." 
There were "oak, walnut and basswood trees," and 
another kind very interesting to them for it was 

17 



A History of the 

"armed with long thorns." And there were the deer, 
and herds of huge wild "cattle," as they called the 
buffalo. 

For "40 leagues on this same route," as Marquette 
estimated the distance, they paddled with the cur- 
rent, and then "We safely entered Mississippi on the 
17th of June, with a joy that I cannot express." 

To the right was "a large chain of very high moun- 
taines," or so they seemed in the sunlit air; to the left 
were "beautiful lands." The stream was "divided by 
islands." And as they "gently followed its course" 
the mountains fell away, the islands became if possible 
"more beautiful," and "covered with finer trees, while 
the prairies were fairly covered with deer and Cattle," 
and the waters swarmed with "bustards and Swans." 

Then there were the monstrous fish, one of which 
"struck our Canoe with such violence that I thought 
it was a great tree, about to break the canoe in pieces." 

Quite as interesting if less dangerous was another 
"monster, with the head of a tiger, a sharp nose like 
that of a wildcat, with whiskers and straight erect 
ears," which they saw swimming. 

To the eyes of this wondering Frenchman it was a 
land of enchanting beauties. For over "one hundred 
leagues" they paddled "without discovering any thing 
except animals and birds," but they kept a good look- 
out, nevertheless, building only small fires when cook- 
ing their food, (Indian corn, fish and dried meat), 
and sleeping in their canoes anchored in the river "at 
some distance from the shore." 

Finally they saw a "somewhat beaten path lead- 
ing to a fine prairie." This, Joliet and Marquette fol- 

18 



Mississippi Valley. 

lowed, leaving the canoes afloat, until they saw three 
villages, and were so near to one that they could hear 
the voices of the inhabitants. Then they stopped and 
shouted as loud as they could. 

At that "the sauvages quickly issued from their 
cabins," and stopped and gazed for a time in wonder 
at the white men. Then four old men advanced, two 
of whom "bore tobacco pipes, finely ornamented and 
adorned with various feathers. They walked slowly, 
and raised their pipes toward the sun, without saying 
a word" — a method of worship not without one com- 
mendable feature, although Marquette does not say so. 

It was soon learned that these Indians were of the 
Illinois tribe. They took the strangers to their village, 
and when the chief met them he held up his hands as 
if to shade his eyes and said, with a grace that even 
men of "the most polite nation" could not have ex- 
ceeded: "How beautiful the sun is, O Frenchmen, 
when thou comest to visit us! Our village awaits 
thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace." 

Learning that the Frenchmen were to explore the 
full length of the river, these Indians gave them a 
pipe of peace — the Calumet — which Marquette de- 
scribes in detail. It had a stone bowl with a reed stem 
which was ornamented with the most beautiful feath- 
ers and bird heads obtainable. In their way the 
Indians used the Calumet, when worshipping the sun, 
as Father Marquette used the Host in his church cere- 
monies. The chief elevated the pipe before the sun 
and the people as the priest elevated the Host in the 
communion services. 

The special value of this pipe to the Frenchmen 
19 



A History of the 

was in its use as a symbol of peace. They were going 
into a country where the red inhabitants would drop 
their weapons, even during the most desperate battle, 
if the calumet were displayed; and with this to protect 
them the explorers left their new friends "at the end of 
June, about three o'clock in the afternoon," 

Very soon they came to the great Missouri, with 
its dominating, debris-laden current, and then on a 
precipice that towered high on the eastern bank — a 
precipice that by its "height and length inspired 
awe" — they found the monsters, the mere thought 
of which had made the Indians of Green Bay tremble 
with fear. So terrible were these monsters, says the 
priest, that they "at first made Us afraid." "They are 
as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads as 
large as a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like 
a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered 
with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around 
the body, passing above the head and going back be- 
tween the legs, ending in a Fish's tail." 

However, if afraid of it "at first," Marquette re- 
covered his courage far enough to make sketches of 
the monsters, and was even able to praise them, at 
last, saying, "those two monsters are so well painted 
that we cannot believe that any sauvage {sauvage, i. e., 
wild man) is their author." He adds that "green, red 
and black are the three colors that compose the pic- 
ture." 

To Joutel, who wrote the story of La Salle's final 
exploring expedition, these famous monsters were by 
no means fearsome. His account speaks of them as 
Marquette's "pretended" monsters, and says that they 

20 



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Mississippi Valley. 

consist of "two scurvy figures drawn in red, on the flat 
side of a rock, about ten or twelve feet high, which 
wants very much of the extraordinary height that Re- 
lation mentions." 

These pictures were painted on the rocks on the 
east side of the Mississippi, just above Alton, Illinois. 
The paint v.as worn away long ago, and in 1867 the 
owner of the land was quarrying out the rock to supply 
the needs of the growing community. 

One statement made by ]\Iarquette regarding the 
Missouri must be considered. He said he learned 
from the Indians that a stream rising near its source 
flowed ''towards the west where it falls into The sea." 
He thought it must empty into the Gulf of California. 
We know now that the head waters of the Platte, a 
tributary of the Missouri, lie near the head of the 
Colorado, which flows to the Gulf of California. And 
at the head of Jackson's Hole, in Wyoming, is a tiny 
stream called Two-Oceans Creek, which rises high on 
a mountain, and flows down to a saddle-back ridge 
where it divides, the one part running down to Snake 
River, whose waters reach the Pacific, and the other 
part running down the Missouri, whose waters reach 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

They found at one point above the Ohio (which 
appears on his map as the Ouabouskigou), a whirlpool 
that was dangerous, and that was the "monster" that 
drowned canoes as well as men; but this expedition 
crossed it without mishap. 

Below the Ohio the explorers saw, on one unnamed 
day, some Indians on the east bank of the Mississippi, 
who were "armed with guns." More interesting still. 

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A History of the 

when the explorers landed, they found "hatchets, hoes, 
knives, beads and flasks of double glass, in which they 
put Their powder." 

"They assured us," writes Marquette, "that they 
bought Cloth and all other goods from Europeans who 
lived to The east, that these Europeans had rosaries 
and pictures; that they played upon instruments; that 
some of them looked like me^ and had been received 
by these sauvages kindly." 

This statement, which is found in Marquette's own 
story of this exploration (p. 149, vol. lix Thw^aite's 
Jesuit "Relations"), seems plain and easily understood. 
The fact that the implements made by white men were 
found in considerable numbers and variety among the 
Indians confirms the statement. "Europeans (trad- 
ers) had been received by these sauvages kindly." 

"This news animated our courage, and made us 
paddle with Fresh ardor," writes Marquette. They 
passed cotton wood, elm and basswood trees that were 
"admirable for Their height and thickness." They 
saw "Quail on the water's edge." They heard the 
bellow of the buffalo. They killed a paroquet that was 
very beautiful. And then they "perceived a village on 
the water's edge called Mitchegamea." 

This is said to have been located at the mouth of 
the St. Francis River, that empties into the Mississippi 
near Helena, Arkansas. The people of it were at first 
hostile. They came well armed to the bank, yelling, 
the while, in fearsome fashion, embarked in great dug- 
outs, and surrounded the canoes. They even came 
swimming to board the Frenchmen, and one warrior 
hurled his club with deadly force, but when they saw 

22 



Mississippi Valley. 

the calumet their passions passed away instantly, and 
they conducted the explorers to the shore where a 
dinner of boiled corn and fish was prepared. 

A most interesting tribe was that. They worshipped 
the sun because it was a beneficent mystery. They 
were ruled by a clan supposed to be descended from the 
sun. They had a temple in which a sacred fire was 
kept burning. They lived in adobe houses. They cul- 
tivated the earth successfully. They were valiant war- 
riors, but they were, at this particular time, in no little 
trouble because the IlHnois Indians from the north, 
and the tribes east of the Great River, were well sup- 
plied with guns and often came to the Arkansas region 
searching for slaves. 

In after years they, too, obtained guns, and then 
they promptly recovered the standing as warriors, 
which they had held before their enemies procured 
guns. Of the Indians of the Mississippi Valley there 
were no more generous or capable warriors than these. 

Their descendants are now known as the Quapaws, 
who live on the reservation at the extreme northeast 
corner of the Indian Territory — a most pitiful rem- 
nant, that in 1900 numbered 251, chiefly of mixed 
bloods, of whom twenty-five were "engaged in civil- 
ized pursuits." 

At a village "8 or 10 leagues lower down," Joliet 
turned back. He learned that the Gulf of Mexico 
"could not be more than 2 or 3 days journey" away to 
the south, but he did not go to it because he feared he 
would be captured by Spaniards, and thus be unable 
to make a report of his discoveries. 

He started home on July 17. On the way the 
23 



A History of the 

party passed up the Illinois River, "which greatly 
shortens our route," as Marquette writes. How they 
knew that it would shorten their road is not explained. 
The soil and the beauty of the country, and the wild 
animals found there aroused the enthusiasm of the 
travellers. "Even beaver" were found here, and what 
was better, the portage into the lakes watershed was, 
in spring and part of the summer, but half a league 
long. The Indians along the route received them with 
pleasure and helped them on their way ; and at the end 
of September they were back in Green Bay. 

It had been a most pleasing and successful voyage 
thus far, but it was marred by one serious accident ere 
Joliet reached Quebec. In passing down the St. Law- 
rence his canoe was upset, and for four hours he 
fought for his life in the tumbling waters. He finally 
escaped, but his papers were lost forever. It is chiefly 
because historians have had to take the story of the 
exploration from Marquette's account, that the in- 
trepid leader of the expedition has been usually treated 
as a mere assistant to the chaplain. 




24 




ROBEUr CAVE1.IKK, SIKIK DE LA SALLE. 




Ill 



LA SALLE AND LOUISL\NA. 

The Splendid Record of the Greatest of French Ex- 
plorers — The Fort Above Niagara Falls — A Gale that 
Showed the Metal of One Good Salt-Sea Sailor — 
Mutinies Under La Salle and Their Origin — At the 
Mouth of the Mississippi at Last — The Sixth Fort in 
the Chain — La Salle Received at Court — Assassinated 
in the Texas Wilderness — The Highest Tributes of 
Honor Paid to La Salle Found in the Deeds of His 
Enemies. 

When in the fall of 1672, Joliet started on his ex- 
pedition to the Mississippi, the unfortunate La Salle 
was trading on borrowed capital to make a living. He 
had done nothing better, in the eyes of his country- 
men, than to throw away an excellent estate and give 
the derisive name of La Chine to the rapids over which 

25 



A History of the 

that estate looked. He had done worse, in fact, ac- 
cording to their thinking, for while a Government ex- 
pedition was on its way to explore the great river, 
this bankrupt was meditating schemes for colonizing 
the vast region drained by the stream ! He — La Salle 
— was to do this! The cackle of his countrymen, as 
they talked of his audacity in proposing such a work, 
never reached the stage of the horse laugh — their 
throats were not built that way — but it was becoming 
incessant, when it was suddenly cut short and turned 
into snarls of rage. 

Though a bankrupt, and the laughing stock of the 
traders sitting beside the forts of Montreal and Que- 
bec, La Salle had attracted the attention of the new 
Governor, Count de Frontenac. Frontenac, as a sol- 
dier, had won by good fighting, the rank of brigadier 
general when only twenty-six years old. Now, at the 
age of fifty-two, he had come to Canada bearing laurels 
but recently earned in Candia. "He was a man of 
excellent parts," by whatever standard tried — one of 
the few who raised the French in New France above 
utter contempt. (Parkman). 

When Frontenac looked over the land he had come 
to cultivate, he saw, as Intendant Talon had seen, that 
it was worth while to add the unoccupied land lying 
to the west and south-west. He saw, too, as Talon 
had seen less clearly, that among the cackling mass 
of citizens. La Salle towered high, and "he often took 
council" of him. To Count Frontenac, the schemes 
of La Salle v/ere not visionary. They showed the way 
to add glory to the crown of Louis XIV, and at the 
same time gain great wealth for the promoters of the 

26 



Mississippi Valley. 

scheme — a matter of no small consequence to both 
Frontenac and La Salle, for both were bankrupts. 

La Salle, backed by Frontenac, purposed building 
a line of forts from Lake Ontario to the mouth of the 
Mississippi. It was a magnificent conception for ter- 
ritorial aggrandizement. He also purposed controlling 
the trading stations at each fort — to make of them a 
source of wealth "beyond the dreams of avarice,'" and 
to carry on this trade by the way of the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

When on May 17, 1673, Joliet left Mackinac, bound 
on the exploring expedition down the Mississippi, 
La Salle was among the Iroquois inviting them to 
come to the bay at the northeast corner of Lake On- 
tario, where Kingston now stands, to meet Count 
Frontenac, Governor of Canada. They called that bay 
Cataraqui, then. 

On June 28, about the time that Joliet was leaving 
the Illinois village at the mouth of the Desmoines, 
Frontenac left Montreal with "400 men and 120 ca- 
noes, besides two large flat boats, which he caused to 
be painted red and blue, with strange devices intended 
to dazzle the Iroquois by a display of unwonted splen- 
dor." 

No idle commander was Frontenac. "Without 
a cloak and drenched to the skin" he directed his men 
as they toiled, neck deep, up the rapids, or "tracked" 
along the banks in the midst of pouring rains. 

And then on July 13, while Joliet was among the 
Arkansas Indians, Frontenac first met the Iroquois. 
Ivines of soldiers — some of them veterans — were sta- 
tioned from Frontenac's tent to the Indian camp. 

27 



A History of the 

Between these lines the sixty chiefs were conducted 
to the tent, and when they arrived, stohd and self- 
possessed at they naturally were on such grave occa- 
sions, they "ejaculated their astonishment" at the gor- 
geous array of uniforms on the Governor's guards. 
And they found in the Governor a man with a dignity 
and a command of language equal to their own, and a 
graciousness withal that was as winning as his bear- 
ing was in other ways commanding. 

It has been often said that the the gunshots of 
Champlain, near Ticonderoga, gained for the French 
people the everlasting hatred of the Iroquois. It is 
not true. No white man ever won the hearts of the 
Iroquois as Frontenac did at Cataraqui, until Sir 
William Johnson came among them. 

For while he talked to the chiefs in flowing lan- 
guage, and gave overcoats, and caressed their babies, 
he built a fort under their eyes without ever exciting 
a word or a thought of protest. It was the first of 
the chain of forts that La Salle had planned. At a 
single stroke Frontenac made peace with these most 
formidable enemies, and placed French guns where 
they would command the Indian trade of the great 
lakes. The further truth is that in the years imme- 
diately preceding the advent of Frontenac the Iroquois 
had held no special hatred against the French, but had 
despised them as easy victims of plundering raids. And 
it may be added here that the power of the Iroquois 
nation waned steadily, if slowly, from the day that 
Frontenac met them. 

Having secured a post on Lake Ontario, Fron- 
tenac sent La Salle to France. La Salle asked the 

28 



Mississippi Valley. 

king for "a grant in seigniory of Fort Frontenac, for 
so he called the new post in honor of his patron," and 
for ''a patent of nobility, in consideration of his ser- 
vices as an explorer." 

Both petitions were granted, and La Salle returned 
to his new wilderness post a feudal lord, and the head 
of the best fur trading station in the world. The price 
he had agreed to pay for these great acquisitions was 
moderate. He was to return to the king the cost of the 
fort — 10,000 francs, — maintain a garrison equal to 
that of Montreal, employ at least fifteen laborers, build 
a church, support a Recollet friar, form a settlement 
of friendly Indians, and replace the wooden walls of 
the fort with stone — all of which he did in good faith. 

But there was an additional cost, not down in the 
contract, and this he was compelled to pay, even with 
his heart's blood — the losses and costs due to the envy 
and malice of those who had sneered and cackled 
when he was down, and who now writhed and screamed 
when they found him planted in the current of beaver 
skins coming from the upper lakes. In establishing 
this trading station Frontenac and La Salle had taken 
in as partners a half dozen of rich traders of the St. 
Lawrence. All Canada besides these and their friends, 
turned, like Indians in the bush, upon this monopoliz- 
ing aggregation. 

Nor was that all. Frontenac hated the Jesuits. 
His quarrels with them over matters of precedence in 
public functions were most virulent, for tliat was the 
day w^hen Louis XIV ruled "the politest" nation. 
Frontenac also quarrelled with the seminary priests 
of Montreal. In all these matters La Salle openly 

29 



A History of the 

"declared himself an adherent of the Governor." Time 
had been when La Salle would avoid trouble by what 
the French called "address," but now he stood by his 
patron, man-fashion. And for a time his manliness 
and ability prevailed. 

A settlement came into existence at Cataraqui. 
Four sailing vessels of from twenty-five to forty tons 
each, were built to gather furs around the lake. The 
vast commerce of the great lakes began at Kingston. 
For the trade on the rivers, canoes were used, and in 
managing these La Salle's men "were reputed the best 
in America." His soldiers were well disciplined. His 
farm hands raised good crops. And the trade of the 
fort soon amounted to a profit of 25,000 livres a year. 

This success exasperated the opponents of La 
Salle to the last degree. Nothing but his death would 
satisfy them, and their efforts to accomplish this were 
characteristic. One merchant, says Parkman, while 
pretending friendship, compelled his wife to attempt 
the act of Potiphar's wife, while he (the merchant), 
well armed, waited in an adjoining room for a sig- 
nal. He thought he should have excuse for killing 
an unarmed man, but La Salle put the woman out 
of the room at the first advance, and then discovered 
the scoundrel in waiting outside the door. And an- 
other pretended friend mixed verdigris and water hem- 
lock in a salad, of which La Salle ate a portion; but 
he recovered from the effects of the poison. 

In the meantime the Jesuit missionaries among the 
Iroquois told them that La Salle was building stone 
walls at Fort Frontenac in order to make it a base for 
an aggressive war against the Five Nations. 

30 





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i 

i 
t 

i 

I 




-vuT^Rarnrft - 


I 




AujUU?. Jfwa ^ 


&\ 


* 


''>■ 


1 

i 

\ 

i 






i 



w^ 







THE OLD PC) 




THE OLD I'^f'-ES ARE HERE SHOWN. 



J8P|0L|8Deid 

:ino-p|oj 




ql a 



^ 



^ Q^ 



■•lX.i>*tii^ 



% 






Mississippi Valley. 

In the midst of such contests with his enemies, 
La Salle, not at all daunted or discouraged, went to 
France once more, obtained a new commission, and 
came back not only to explore the whole length of the 
Mississippi, but to build the chain of forts and trad- 
ing stations already mentioned along the route to the 
mouth of the Great River. He was particularly anx- 
ious for an establishment at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi because he could there rule and trade free from 
the attacks of the hosts on the St. Lawrence. 

This great work was to be done, however, with- 
out any financial aid from the government, and one 
gets a curious view of La Salle's character, and of 
the business methods of the day, from a statement 
of the way he raised money for the enterprise. He 
borrowed ii,ooo livres from a merchant named Fran- 
cois Plet, agreeing to pay forty per cent interest, and 
he pledged Fort Frontenac, the magnificent establish- 
ment yielding 25,000 livres annual income, for the 
paltry loan of 14,000 livres, on which, presumably, 
he paid the same deadly rate of interest. 

La Salle returned from France late in 1678. Hav- 
ing obtained the needed loans he sent fifteen men 
to the Lake Michigan region to trade with the Indians 
in order that he might make the money to pay the 
enormous interest on his loans. On November 18, 
another party, under an assistant named La Mott 
sailed for Niagara river (where they arrived on De- 
cember 6), to build a fort that would control the 
portage around the Niagara Falls, and a ship with 
which to navigate the lakes above. 

This fort was the second built according to La 
31 



A History of the 

Salle's plan for adding the Mississippi Valley to the 
dominions of France. The point selected was at the 
little hamlet called La Salle opposite Cayuga Island in 
the Niagara River. The Seneca Indians "betrayed a 
sullen jealousy." They had been in trade themselves. 
They were middlemen between the western Indians 
and the settlements on the Hudson. Among them 
were two missionaries from Quebec who were sided 
with the enemies of La Salle, and who did all they 
could to excite the astute chiefs still further. But 
La Salle went to the principal village and soothed them 
into consenting to his work. 

Then a disaster came on the heels of this success. 
A vessel loaded with rigging for the new ship La Salle 
was building above the falls was wrecked. It is 
charged that the pilot wrecked her in the interests 
of La Salle's enemies, and it is certain that his enemies 
were eager and unscrupulous, while he never had the 
skill to bind his men to him. 

Out of the wreck La Salle saved but little. Mean- 
time his men were in a turmoil. Under the strain 
La Salle's health failed, but he kept the work moving, 
being aided by a most capable lieutenant named Tonti, 
a notable man in a variety of ways — a man who had 
placed an iron hand on the end of his arm because his 
natural hand had been shot away in battle, and who 
had a will to match the new member thus obtained. 

La Salle, being obliged to go back to Ft. Frontenac 
for more rigging, left Tonti in command. The work 
went on more smoothly thereafter, for Tonti kept the 
gang in awe by a free use of his iron fist. 

Accordingly, w^hen the ice broke up in the spring 
32 



Mississippi Valley. 

of 1679, the new ship — the first ever placed on Lake 
Erie — was launched, and fitted with the rigging and 
five small cannon which La Salle brought for her. She 
carried as a figure head a rudely carved griffin, and 
she was named the Griffin, because Frontenac's coat of 
arms bore a griffin. 

"La Salle had often been heard to say that he 
would make the griffin fly above the crows" — would 
"make Frontenac triumph over the Jesuits." He got 
the ship ready for her voyage, but he had to tell his 
company, meantime, that all his property in Canada, 
including Ft. Frontenac, had been seized by his cred- 
itors, who had become frightened by the persistent 
rumors kept going by his enemies, that the enterprise 
was visionary, and that La Salle would never return. 
Those whom he called "the crows" were enemies not 
to be despised. 

Though in a most desperate condition of affairs. 
La Salle pushed on. A storm on Lake Huron fright- 
ened all hands save one, until they all knelt to pray. 
But the pilot, — wicked, capable sailor that he was — 
held her nose to the wind and cursed the sniffling mob 
that grovelled at the foot of an image of St. Anthony 
of Padua. 

A Recollet friar, named Louis Hennepin, was chap- 
lain of the expedition, and its historian. He says 
he bribed St. Anthony into stilling the tempest, but we 
will believe that the good salt sea sailor who stood 
at the helm, brought the Griffin out of the trouble. 

La Salle escaped the gale, but only to find more 
trouble. Mackinac was then the resort of the unli- 
censed traders and conrcurs-dc-hois who bought and 

33 



A History of the 

sold where they could. They carried their furs to 
Albany quite as often as to Quebec; for Dutch rum 
would exhilerate as well as French brandy, and Dutch 
maidens were not to be ignored or despised. Moreover 
furs bought more of the joys of life in Albany than in 
Quebec. 

These reckless woods rangers saw that La Salle 
would interfere with their Albany trade, and probably 
with their other trade. With one accord, therefore, 
they conspired to ruin the trade of the fifteen advance 
agents of La Salle who had stopped there on their 
way to the tribes furthest west. And they succeeded 
well. It was a mission station, but it was also a trad- 
ing station, and the dwelling place of many Indians. 
"Brandy and squaws abounded," says an old account. 
Aided by the Indians the c our cur-de-hois persuaded 
several of the fifteen to dispose of La Salle's goods 
in ways that profited him not a sou. Others took the 
goods to the wilds and went trading on their own ac- 
count — stole the goods outright. 

La Salle was anxious to return to Ft. Frontenac, 
and leave Tonti to go ahead and build a fort among 
the Illinois Indians, but the desertion of these advance 
agents compelled him to remain with the expedition 
to reprieve the loss their treachery had brought upon 
him. So he sailed over to Green Bay, where he found 
that an unnamed remnant of his fifteen had been faith- 
ful, and had collected a "large store of furs." 

Encouraged by this good fortune, for the profit 
on the furs would partly repair his losses, La Salle 
took four canoe loads of supplies from the Griffin, and 
loading her with furs sent her back to Niagara, while 

34 



Mississippi Valley. 

he went forward with the four canoes to build a fort 
among the IlHnois Indians. The Griffin was to bring, 
for a return cargo, besides ordinary supplies, the rig- 
ging for another ship which La Salle purposed build- 
ing for use on the Mississippi. 

On September i8, 1679, the Griffin made sail for 
the East. La Salle, on the same day, paddled away 
toward the head of Lake Michigan, and after a jour- 
ney that was made most woeful by the mutinous con- 
duct of his men, he reached the St. Joseph's river. 

Because La Salle's men were always mutinous it 
may be well to consider here the reason for the trouble. 
The words of the man, uttered when his friends accused 
him with harshness, tell the whole story. He said : 

"The facility I am said to want is out of place with 
this sort of people, who are libertines, for the most 
part ; and to indulge them means to tolerate blasphemy, 
drunkenness, lewdness and a license incompatible with 
order. The debaucheries, too common with this rabble, 
are the source of endless delays and frequent thieving; 
and finally, / am a Christian, and do not want to beat' 
the burden of their crimes." 

A chief characteristic of this man is therein por- 
trayed. He was sincere. 

On reaching the St. Joseph this much harassed, 
most unhappy but conscience-clear La Salle found 
relief in the work of building a fort not far from the 
modern town of St. Joseph, Mich., near the mouth 
of the stream. It was the third of the line of forts 
that he intended to stretch to the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. Others had proclaimed the sovereignty of 
France — had written a title in the air — but La Salle 

35 



A History of tJie 

was taking actual possession, and it was work worth 
while. 

From this fort, named Miami, La Salle went up 
the St. Joseph to the site of the present city of South 
Bend, Indiana, where a portage led him to the Kan- 
kakee river. It is to be noted that in crossing this 
portage one of his men tried to shoot La Salle in the 
back, but was stopped in time. 

On January 5, 1680, the party crossed Peoria Lake 
and found an Indian village where Peoria, 111., now 
stands, and with these people — members of the Illinois 
tribe — La Salle easily made peace. 

And yet, though hundreds of leagues from Que- 
bec, La Salle found he was not wholly beyond reach 
of his enemies in that town. While he negotiated for 
permission to establish a trading station and build a 
ship, an emissary of the enemy — a chief known as 
Monso, with five.Miamis, came to the village by night, 
and told the Illinois that La Salle was a spy of the 
dreaded Iroquois. And still greater trouble followed, 
when six of his men deserted, and another gave him a 
dose of poison. 

Nevertheless La Salle persevered. The poison did 
not kill him. The emissaries of his enemies fled, and he 
was able to secure the confidence of the Illinois. Then 
he went to a point below the camp where he found a 
low hill with a deep ravine on each side, and a marsh, 
200 yards wide, between it and the river. There he 
built a stout palisade fort, with musket-proof houses 
in the angles for his men. For himself and Tonti he 
provided tents in the open center of the fort. 

Two facts about this fort are remarkable. He 
36 



Mississippi Valley. 

named it Crevecoeur — Broken Heart — and he lived in 
a tent while he lodged his men in comfortable, musket- 
proof barracks. Moreover it was the fourth fort in 
the long line from Montreal. 

And it is not to be forgotten that when the fort 
was done La Salle began the work of building a forty- 
ton ship for navigating the Mississippi, and he himself, 
to animate his men, took hold of the back-breaking 
whip-saw to cut the logs into planks. It was character- 
istic of the man. By February i, 1680, the hull of the 
new ship was half done. 

And all this was done in spite of the fact that 
nothing had been heard from the Griffin, with her 
precious cargo of furs to be carried down, and her 
equally precious up-cargo of rigging that was im- 
peratively needed for the new ship. For La Salle had 
determined not only to load this ship with skins on 
the Mississippi, but to sail in her to France. 

And not only did La Salle keep working on; he 
sent, on the last day of February, 1680, an expedition 
to explore the Mississippi from the mouth of the 
Illinois up, in order that he might learn its resources, 
and give some of his men the experience necessary to 
make them pilots. 

Michael Accau was in charge of this expedition, 
and he was assisted by one Du Gay, but the priest 
Hennepin w^as sent along to write the account, and he 
wrote it as if he was the leader. 

Hennepin's account occupies much space in the 
histories of the French in America. But the expedition 
did little that was more important than to visit and 
name the falls of St. Anthony. Hennepin described 

37 



A Hist cry of the 

the country, and the Sioux Indians among whom 
he was a prisoner for a time, but he strove to obtain 
honors that he had not earned by asserting that he 
went to the mouth of the Mississippi, and he is now 
known to have been a most "impudent Har." (Park- 
man. ) 

Meantime the Griffin with her cargo of rigging for 
the new ship did not come. La Salle had hoped for 
her coming even after the lake froze over, but she 
had gone where he nor "the crows" would ever see 
her. Her fate is a mystery. Some think she foundered 
in a gale, others that Indians captured and destroyed 
her with all hands, and a few supposed that the pilot 
ran away with her and tried to carry her cargo to 
the English at Hudson's Bay. But we will not believe 
that the salt sea sailor who stood firm at the tiller 
openly cursing the cowards who grovelled in abject 
terror — we never will believe that such a man was a 
traitor. The Griffin foundered, with the pilot stand- 
ing at the tiller, looking the gale in the eye with full 
confidence that the God of the gale would do what 
was right. 

Having at last lost all hope of the Griffin, La Salle 
started (March i, 1680), with five companions back 
to get another outfit. In that journey wherein the 
waters were covered with ice "too weak to bear them 
and too strong to permit them to break a way with 
their canoes;" where the temperature was often low 
enough to freeze their clothing stiff as they emerged 
from a ford ; where they waded day after day through 
knee-deep crusted snow, there is one memorable fact. 
La Salle led the way, breaking the path that the 

38 



Mississippi Valley. 

journey might be easier for the others. He would 
never shirk any labor helpful to his purpose. He was, 
too, a man of such marvelous physical powers that he 
reached his fort on the Niagara River in good condi- 
tion, although four of his companions had been obliged 
to stop by the way, and the last one was left at Niag- 
ara while La Salle went on. 

La Salle had not only lost the Griffin; a consign- 
ment of goods worth 22,000 livres, that was on the way 
to him from France, was lost, through the stranding of 
the ship. Worse yet, two coureurs-de-hois brought 
a letter from Tonti (whom he had left in command at 
Ft. Crevecoeur), saying that all the garrison but four 
or five men had mutinied, destroyed the fort and 
stores, and had fled. 

Nevertheless La Salle enlisted twenty-five new men, 
obtained another outfit, and in August, 1680, started 
again. Having learned that several of the mutineers 
were coming east by the way of the north shore of 
Lake Erie, and that they had determined to kill him, 
if they could meet him, La Salle was careful to 
meet them. Two of them he killed, and the others he 
sent as prisoners to Montreal. 

Without further incident worth mention La Salle 
arrived at the point on the Illinois river where Utica 
now stands; but instead of finding a plain "swarming 
with wild human life," he found charred remains of 
burned cabins, and the ground between strewn with the 
remains of human bodies. Flocks of ravens and buz- 
zards rose, and "wolves in multitude fled," when he 
landed. 

The Iroquois had come, (sent by Jesuit priests, 
39 



A History of the 

Parkman says), and failing to capture as many of 
the Illinois as they hoped, had not only destroyed the 
huts and caches, but had ravaged the nearby cemetery, 
to set up the dry skulls on poles and scatter the other 
bones to the winds. 

Tonti, and the faithful four or five could not be 
found. The hull of the new ship was not destroyed, but 
all the iron bolts and spikes had been carried away. 
So La Salle turned back to pass the winter at Ft. 
Miami, on Lake Michigan. 

As a side light on the character of this man La 
Salle, it must be told that while he was in the midst 
of his search among the ghastly relics of Iroquois 
barbarism for traces of his missing friend and com- 
panion, night came on and an enormous comet was 
seen flaming in the sky. The pious Increase Mather 
of Boston on seeing it "thought it fraught with terrific 
portent to the nations of the earth," and nearly all men 
cowered at sight of it; but La Salle "coolly noted down 
the phenomenon as an object of scientific curiosity." 

As a small relief to his ever present burden of 
disappointment. La Salle found "allies close at hand," 
during the winter. The Puritans of IMassachusetts had 
fought out King Philip's War, and a band of Abenakis 
had fled for refuge to the Miamis of the region where 
Ft. Miami stood. A small village was close at hand. 
The New England refugees, "with one voice promised 
to follow La Salle, asking no recompense but to call 
him their chief, and yield to him the love and admira- 
tion which he rarely failed to command from the hero- 
worshiping race." So says Parkman. Few passages 
of higher praise can be found in the story of La Salle. 

40 



Mississippi Valley. 

It is equally honorable to the refugees. But it does not 
read so well in the story of the Puritans. 

A treaty pledging the allegiance of the Miamis to 
the French interests was easily made, but before La 
Salle could start again for the Mississippi he was 
obliged to return still once more to the St. Lawrence 
"to appease his creditors," and "collect his scattered 
resources." 

"Any one else would have thrown up his hand and 
abandoned the enterprise; but, far from this, with a 
firmness and constancy that never had its equal, I 
saw him more resolved than ever to continue his 
work," wrote a friend. 

La Salle left Ft. ^liami at the end of May, 1 68 1, and 
in due time reached Montreal. There, in spite of two 
years of disaster, and in spite of debts that bore in- 
terest at forty per cent., he once more obtained the 
means for a voyage, How it was possible for him to 
do so under the circumstances is worth considera- 
tion. The explanation is given in a memoir written by 
La Salle in 1684, and now to be found in vol. ix. pp. 
216-221, "New York Colonial Documents." It is a 
statement of the profits made in the trade with the 
Indians. He says: 

To drive a profitable trade, 20,000 livres must be expended in 
France in the purchase of the following assortments : / 

Five pipes (tonneau) of brandy at the rate of two hundred 
livres the pipe; five pipes (tonneau) of Wine at 40 li. the pipe; 
2,000 ells of blue poitou Serge at 2 li. the ell; 1,000 ells of Iro- 
quois blanketing at 2 li., los. the ell; 1,800 white shirts (chemises) 
at 30 sous; five hundred pairs stockings at i li., 5s. the pair; 
2,000 pounds of small kettles at i liv., 5s. the pound; two 
hundred pounds of large black glass beads at los. the pound; 
a thousand axes for the trade at 7 and 8 sous the pound; 4,000 

41 



A History of the 

pounds of powder at lO and 12 sous the pound; 7,000 pounds of 
ball and 3,000 pounds of lead at 120 liv. the thousand; 1,200 
guns at 10 liv. each; 2,400 flattins at 30 sous the dozen; 100 dozen 
steels (Battcs-fcu) at i liv. 5s. the dozen; 50 dozen of large 
tinned looking glasses (mirrors fer-blanc) at I liv. los. the 
dozen ; 50 pounds of vermilion at 3s. the pound ; 250 ells of 
scarlet stufif {ccarlatine) at 4 liv. the ell; and 400 pounds of 
tobacco at 17 sous. 

These things, carried to the Indians, will produce as follows : 

They get a pint of brandy for a beaver ; and consequently, 
were only two and a half pipes (tonneau) of it sold, allowing 
the remainder for the expense of the fort and the pay of the 
soldiers and sailors to whom it is sold at one hundred sous the 
quart, the ten barrels, retailing to the Indians at the rate of 
one hundred quarts to the barrel and of four beavers per quart, 
would produce four thousand beavers, at four livres a piece, or an 
equivalent in other peltry, which would amount to sixteen thous- 
and livres, and leaves, consequently, fifteen thousand livres profit. 

The wine would also serve to pay the expenses of freight and 
wages at the rate of 40 sous the quart. 

The ell of Poitou serge sells for six francs to the Indians, 
and that of Iroquois blanketing for eight livres, and consequently 
on these two articles there would be a profit of thirteen thousand 
livres. 

The shirts sell for at least one hundred sous, and the stock- 
ings for eight livres, so that on these two articles there is more 
than four thousand livres gain. 

Kettles sell at four francs the pound, and consequently there 
would be 5,500 livres profit on that article. 

Glass beads sell at eight francs the pound, and axes at thirty 
sous apiece, so that these two articles would leave a profit 
of two thousand livres. 

Powder sells at 40 sous the pound, and lead at twenty sous, 
which would make on these two articles over thirteen thousand 
livres. 

Guns sell at 24 livres each, and therefore would produce 2,400 
liv. more than their cost. 

Tobacco sells at eight francs per poimd, it would therefore 
give over 2,000 liv. profit. 

On the scarlet stufif (ecarlatine), one-half would be gained, 
which would be worth one thousand livres. 

42 



Mississippi Valley. 

The profit is proportionably greater on the other articles, 
such as knives, vermilion, steel, etc. 

He showed conclusively that for every franc inves- 
ted the trade would yield an ecu, or about sixty cents 
net profit per year, or say, 300 per cent. His Canadian 
supporters were all practical traders — they knew that 
he was within the facts in this statement of the profits 
in the trade with the Indians, and they, of course, en- 
dorsed it when he sent it to France. 

Accordingly, in September, 1681, he was found in 
the harbor where Toronto now stands, making the por- 
tage to Lake Simcoe, in order to go forward via Geor- 
gian Bay, and while there he wrote: 

"I hope this business will turn out well ; for I have 
M. de Tonti, who is full of zeal, thirty Frenchmen, all 
good men, without reckoning such as I cannot trust; 
and more than 100 Indians, some of them Shawanese 
and others from New England, all of whom know how 
to use guns." 

They were at Ft. Miami in December and on the 
2ist the party began crossing the south end of the lake 
to the Chicago river. There, where many things are 
made in this day, they made sleds on which they placed 
their canoes and baggage, and dragging these, they 
passed over the route of the great modern drainage 
canal, and followed down the frozen Illinois till they 
found open water in Lake Peoria. Here they embarked 
and on February 6, 1682, floated out on the broad 
Mississippi. 

It was late in La Salle's day of life, but for a brief 
time the sun broke through the clouds. For a few 
days he was to travel with the tide unbuffeted. 

43 



A History of the 

On February 24 a landing- was made at the Third 
Chickasaw Bkiff, (in the northwestern part of Shelby 
county, Tennessee), and the party encamped to hunt 
for game. Here one Pierre Prudhomme was lost in the 
forest. Signs of Indians had been seen in the vicinity, 
and because of this fact La Salle with part of his crew 
built a wooden fort while the others hunted for the lost 
man. And when he was found at last, his name was 
given to the fort to commemorate the successful result 
of the search. This was the fifth fort in the line which 
La Salle was building- between Montreal and the mouth 
of the Mississippi. 

Again La Salle embarked "and with every stage 
of his adventurous progress the mystery of this vast 
new world was more and more unveiled." He met the 
Arkansas and the Natchez Lidians, and took possession 
of their lands with the usual ceremonies, while the 
Lidians looked on with pleasure because they did not 
comprehend the meaning of the ceremonies. 

Then on April 6, 1682, they reached the place where 
the mighty stream divided itself into three channels 
and flowed away into the Gulf of Mexico. 

For three days the party cruised about the verge of 
the Gulf and then going to a low dry hillock, on the 
bank of the river, they erected a wooden column, on 
which they carved the arms of France, and these words : 

Louis Ic Grand, Rcy dc France et dc Nevarre, Regne : 
Le Neuvieme Avril 1682. 

Then in the usual form the whole magnificent basin 
of the Great River was claimed for the crown of "Louis 
le Grand," and named Louisiana in his honor. 

44 




franqupxin's map, 1684. 



Mississippi Valley. 

La Salle had reached the river's mouth. He was the 
first to explore the land there, and the first to claim the 
whole watershed of the great river. He had also built 
a fort on the bank of the river, and another fort on 
one of the tributaries. By these things done he had filed 
in the name of France, a good preliminary claim on 
the whole magnificent valley. From the oil spring in 
Alleghany County, New York, to the dividing of the 
waters of Two Oceans Creek in Wyoming; from the 
Wisconsin lakes where the honking wild goose nested 
and the Sioux ranged free, to the tide swept marshes of 
the Gulf of Mexico, Louis the XIV now reigned by 
virtue of the work of Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de 
la Salle. 

Fortunately for American civilization there was 
no other Frenchman in America equal to this one, and 
not from all France, was his equal to follow him to 
America. 

Few words are needed to tell the remainder of the 
story of La Salle. He returned up the river, and at 
Starved Rock, on the Illinois, near the modern village 
of Utica, built another fort which he called St. Louis. 
It was the sixth of his chain. Here he gathered a colo- 
ny of Indians of various tribes and granted lands to his 
followers, as he had a legal right to do. But in the 
meantime the enemies of the enterprise had succeeded 
in having Frontenac recalled. A Governor, La Barre, 
was appointed who antagonized La Salle as much as 
he could. In desperation La Salle left his colony and 
went to France. 

There "he found himself famous. He, the poor 
boy, the ignoble by birth, was presented to Louis XIV 

45 



A History of the 

amid all the splendors of the court. That Jupiter among 
the Kings of the earth had a smile to bestow upon 
the humble subject who came to deposit at the foot of 
the throne the title deeds of such broad domains." 

An expedition of four ships was fitted out to make 
a permanent settlement near the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. There were material for forts, and men for gar- 
risons; materials for plantations and men to work 
them; a marquis for social elegance and girls to marry 
the young men — very attractive girls, too, it would 
seem, for the marquis wanted to marry one of them, 
later on, in spite of her ignoble birth. 

The ambition of La Salle — the one man who stands 
forever conspicuous in the New France of his day — 
seemed realized. 

Nevertheless the fates had in his hour of triumph, 
tangled the lines of his life. It was only after much 
bickering that the expedition sailed. In the West Indies 
La Salle was stricken with fever, one of his ships was 
captured by the Spanish and his men were debauched 
by the buccaneer hordes. Worse yet, when he recovered 
and sailed on, the squadron overstood the mouth of 
the Mississippi, and landed in a bay — supposed to be 
Matagorda — on the coast of Texas. 

La Salle was now, at last, fatally enmeshed. A 
store ship was stranded and lost because her captain 
persisted in coming into the harbor under sail contrary 
to orders. There are good reasons for supposing he 
deliberately wrecked her. Another small store ship 
was brought into the harbor, but she, too, was lost. The 
last one, a frigate, sailed away to seek a harbor with 
sufficient depth of water in which some needed supplies, 

46 



Mississippi Valley. 

then stowed down under all, might be broken out, and 
brought back to La Salle, but she was unable to re- 
turn. 

As theretofore, in the face of every discourage- 
ment. La Salle continued to work. He built his fort 
and planned his settlement. He went exploring to find 
at what point the great river entered the bay and 
learned that the river was nowhere in the region. His 
people were as a whole the scum of Paris. Many died 
and the living became mutinous. Their clothes wore 
out and were replaced by others made of the sails of 
the last ship that was wrecked. 

Finally at the end of 1686 it was seen that a jour- 
ney to France for another outfit must be made, else all 
would die there in the wilderness, and La Salle de- 
termined to go by the way of Quebec. On January 7, 
1687, he left his fort with sixteen white men and two 
Indians, hoping to find his way to the Mississippi, and 
then by way of the Illinois, where Tonti was yet in 
command, to the St. Lawrence. He left behind twen- 
ty people of whom seven were girls who had come hop- 
ing to find husbands and homes in the New World. 

The company on leaving France had comprised 
roo soldiers, "thirty volunteers including gentlemen," 
"several families as well as a number of girls," and six 
priests. Only thirty-seven, all told, were now left, and 
seventeen of these, in suits made of skins and old sails, 
were starting on the long journey to Quebec, though 
they did not know anything about the country between 
them and the Mississippi, and had only an indefinite 
idea of the direction. 

Until the month of March they struggled on their 

47 



A History of the 

way and finally reached the Trinity river. A mutinous 
spirit had grown steadily, and on March 15, while en- 
camped on the Trinity, some of the men quarreled over 
marrow bones and other choice bits of two buffaloes 
killed by a small hunting party that was camped at 
some distance from the main body. It was a quarrel, 
naturally, between men who were friendly to the leader 
and those who were not, and on the night of the 17th 
of March the friends of La Salle, (three in number, in- 
cluding Nika, an Indian,) were murdered while they 
slept. 

This party should have returned to the main camp 
on the night of the 17th, and their failure to do so 
caused La Salle no little uneasiness during the next 
day. To his Lieutenant, Joutel, a fellow townsman, 
and the historian of the expedition, La Salle showed a 
marked "presentiment of what was to take place," as 
Joutel writes. "He asked me if I had heard of any 
machinations against them, or had noticed any bad 
design." 

On the morning of March 19, 1687, La Salle started 
to find the wandering hunters. He took with him Fath- 
er Anastase Douay and an Indian. On the way "he 
spoke to me of nothing but matters of piety, grace and 
predestination; enlarging on the debt he owed to God, 
who had saved him from so many perils during more 
than twenty years of travel in America. Suddenly I 
saw him overwhelmed with a profound sadness, for 
which he himself could not account. He was so much 
moved that I scarcely knew him," wrote the priest. 

But that feeling passed wholly away when he ar- 
rived near the camp of the mutineers. One of them 

48 



Mississippi Valley. 

had been placed in view as a decoy while two hid in the 
grass. The decoy replied "with a tone of studied in- 
solence" when La Salle hailed him. 

Full of anger La Salle started forward to punish 
the scoundrel, but when he was passing the ambushed 
conspirators they fired, and La Salle fell dead, shot 
through the brain. 

No praise of La Salle is so sincere and emphatic 
as that of his enemies, unwitting though it has been 
always. The traders who from the safe shadows of 
the St. Lawrence forts jeered him; the Jesuits who 
sent the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois Indians about 
Fort Crevecoeur ; the assassins who shot him from am- 
bush — all these stand forth in history and say : 

"There was a man." 

For not one of them, nor all combined, ever dared 
to oppose him, face to face, man fashion. 

Six of La Salle's party of seventeen eventually reach- 
ed Quebec, whence five sailed to France. Two of the 
three who ambushed La Salle were shot by their com- 
panions in a quarrel over the trade goods La Salle had 
carried, the third lived to reach the Spaniards in Mex- 
ico. The remainder of the party were nearly all killed 
by the Indians, but "Gravier's Voyage" as found in 
the Jesuit "Relations" (vol. Ixv) says that two of 
them were delivered to the Spaniards and were after- 
ward able to reach "fort Bilocchi." The fort built by 
La Salle at Matagorda Bay was raided by the Indians, 
and fourteen out of the twenty that remained in it were 
killed. Two of these who were spared were the child- 
ren of a man named Talon, and these eventually 
reached France. 

49 



A History of the 

In all fourteen of La Salle's party are accounted 
for in the settlements of the French, and of these seven 
returned to France. All the others died on the way or 
perished in the wilderness. 




50 




JEAN BAl'TI.Sl'K LE MOVNE, SIEUR DE BIENVILLE. 
Governor of Louisiana, 1718. 




IV 



FROM LA SALLE TO NEW ORLEANS. 



Work of a Backwoods Naval Officer — Tales of a Blue 
Capote, a Piece of Speaking Bark and a Red Tree 
Trunk — When the Frown of the King's Favorite 
Sent a Prime Minister Waltzing Into Outer Dark- 
ness — The Notable Journeys of Henri de Tonti — A 
Story of Misplaced Love — Starving, Though Lo- 
cated on the Richest Land in the World — The Found- 
ing of New Orleans, 

In the journal of the Jesuits for October 26, 1645, 
is this paragraph : 

An order was given at the same time to Monsieur de Chesne, 
uncle of Charles le Moyne, for 20 ecus, which we were giving 
his nephew for four years' service rendered among the Hurons. 
He was clothed and decently supplied with linen, and was sent 
to Three Rivers as soldier and interpreter. 

51 



A History of the 

This Charles le Moyne, then twenty-one years old, 
is to be remembered here, because he was afterwards 
thefatherof fourteen children, "most of whom achieved 
distinction in military or civil affairs," and among 
whom were Iberville and Bienville, who gave to France 
the undisputed de facto possession of the lower end of 
the vast territory of the Mississippi Valley, to which 
the work of La Salle had given her the legal right of 
pre-emption. If Bienville is to be regarded as "the 
father of New Orleans," Charles le Moyne was its 
grandfather. 

La Salle's plans for settling the lower end of the 
Louisiana territory did not die with him. Tonti, who 
remained in command at the fort on Starved Rock, on 
the Illinois, (a "privileged character," he, and "re- 
spected by Indians and whites"), applied in 1694, for 
a commission to carry on the work, and failed to get 
it. Two other officers made further application in 
1697 without success, but in 1698, when Le Moyne 
d'lberville offered to plant a colony in Louisiana, his 
plans were accepted. 

For this youth from the backwoods of Canada had 
become a noted man. He had entered the French navy, 
and by good work, had risen, until at the end of the 
Seventeenth Century he ranked as a post captain. 
While in command of the frigate Pelican, of but 
forty-four cannon, he met in Hudson's Bay the British 
frigate Hampshire, of fifty-two guns, the Daring, of 
thirty-six guns and the Hudson's Bay of thirty-two — 
a fleet rated at 120 guns to his forty- four. In spite of 
the odds, this man, who had been trained in the back- 
woods of North America, cleared for action, ranged up 

52 



J8p|0L18De|c| 

:ino-p|Od 




Mississippi Valley. 

alongside the Hampshire and sank her. Then he cap- 
tured the Hudson's Bay, and drove the Daring into 
a flight that behed her name. 

The record says the Hampshire sank because o£ the 
shot she received between wind and water. Iber- 
ville had taught his gunners how to aim their guns, 
and history shows that naval officers who have done 
that have achieved, as well as earned, fame whenever 
opportunity came to them ; it shows further that, with 
rare exception, only naval officers with backwoods ex- 
perience have fully understood the value of accuracy 
of aim. 

And yet the success of Iberville in obtaining a 
Louisiana commission but deepens the gloom about the 
heroic figure of La Salle. For the Le Moyne family 
had been among the most powerful of his opponents. 
While La Salle's bones lay scattered on the Texan 
plain, one of his persistent enemies was to reap where 
he had, by infinite labor and with life itself, prepared 
the ground and sowed the seed. 

Iberville, in his Louisiana work, had international 
conditions in his favor. Spain had reached out to settle 
the Gulf coast, and a company had been formed in 
London to establish a colony on the Mississippi. A 
rumor prevailed that a company of Pennsylvanians 
had settled on the Wabash. The French Government 
cared very little about the territory for itself, but to 
prevent its becoming English territory Iberville was 
sent to colonize it. French jealousy of the English 
has had much influence on American affairs. 

With the war ships Badine and Marin, and a num- 
ber of transports, Iberville sailed from Brest on 

53 



A History of the 

October 24, 1698. On December 4 he arrived at Cape 
Francois, San Domingo. There he added some buc- 
caneers to his crew, (the notable career of the buc- 
caneers was then just ending), and he was joined by 
the fifty-gun frigate Francois. 

After sailing thence along the south side of Cuba 
and north past Cape San Antonio, the coast of Florida 
was seen on January 27,, and on the 26th they dis- 
covered two Spanish ships in Pensacola harbor. The 
Spanish "had not been settled [there] for more than 
three weeks," according to Gravier's Voyage. But the 
first settlement they made there was in 1696. Leaving 
the Spaniards unmolested Iberville continued his west- 
ward course until, on February 10, he furled sail in 
what is now the well known road behind Ship Island ; 
and they gave the Island its name because it afforded 
a safe anchorage. 

From this place Iberville and his men went explor- 
ing the region in small boats. They found one island 
well strewn with human bones and named it Massacre 
Island, but afterwards changed the name to Dauphin. 
They found another island thickly inhabited by rac- 
coons and named it Cat Island, 

On March 2 Iberville's boats rowed into a strong 
current of fresh muddy water sweeping across the 
salt sea from among the marshes. Up this current 
the explorers hastened as well as they could, eventually 
finding banks more or less firm, and finally some In- 
dians, among whom was one who had a blue hooded 
cloak. He said a white man had given it to him. 
At a village of 200 cabins built around a temple, they 
found a glass bottle left by the man who had owned 

■ 54 



Mississippi Valley. 

the blue capote. They saw also a red tree trunk on 
which the Indians had made rude pictures of a bear 
and a fish. This red tree marked the boundary between 
two tribes, and Baton Rouge, (i. e., a red staff or 
stake used by surveyors) is the name of the city stand- 
ing where the tree stood. 

On returning down the river Iberville sent his 
younger brother Bienville back by the main stream, and 
the young man found an Indian who had a piece of 
"speaking bark." A most wonderful medicine the In- 
dian thought it, but Bienville bought it for a hatchet. 
It was a letter written by Henri de Tonti to La Salle. 

Thirteen years before while in charge of fort St. 
Louis, on the Illinois, Tonti had heard that La Salle 
had sailed from France to form a settlement at the 
mouth of the Mississippi. As soon as possible there- 
after he started to visit his friend— to travel in a canoe 
from Utica, Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico, in spite 
of the physical hardships and the hostilities of Indians 
along the route— that he might make a friendly call 
on an old comrade. He reached the Gulf while La 
Salle was struggling in the Fates' mesh on the plains 
of Texas, but there was no way for Tonti to learn 
where La Salle was, and after a weary wait, he gave 
the chief of a near-by Indian village some presents, 
(among the rest the blue capote), and a letter to be 
delivered to La Salle whenever the expedition should 
arrive. It is a picture of early life in the great valley 
that is worth preserving. 

From the Mississippi, Iberville himself returned by 
the way of Bayou Manchac and Maurepas and Pont- 
chartrain, naming these lakes as he came. Both lakes 

55 



A History of the 

were named for families that produced prime ministers 
of France. Some Cyclopedias omit the name of Pont- 
chartrain but all contain that of Maurepas. He was a 
*'nimble old man, who for all emergencies has his light 
jest; and even in the worst confusion will emerge, 
cork-like, unsunk," until "fixed in the frost of death," 
in 1781. His name is "fixed" in the cyclopedias for a 
number of reasons. He was not only a prime minister 
of France, but a most capable writer of literature of 
the class now excluded from the mails. He wrote a 
description of Madam Pompadour in this vein, and she 
was so much offended that the king, Louis XV., dis- 
missed him from ofiice. Recalling the conditions pre- 
vailing in the court of old France helps toward a com- 
prehension of the history of New France; to see "a 
lightly-jesting, lightly-gyrating M. de Maurepas" sent 
waltzing into outer darkness by the frown of the king's 
favorite explains much — as shall appear in more detail 
further on. This is not to say that the lake was named 
for the "nimble old" Maurepas. It was named for 
his family. 

It is well to note here that Iberville's instructions 
commanded him "to seek out diligently the best places 
for establishing pearl fisheries." He was also to "look 
for mines," the finding of which would be "the great 
business." (Parkman) 

Iberville finally settled where Biloxi now stands, 
choosing that location partly because of the lovely little 
bay, and partly because the Biloxi Indians (a stray 
fragment of the great Sioux family), from whom the 
bay was named, were a very friendly people. "On the 
east side, at the mouth of the bay, there is a slight swell- 

56 





JEANNE ANTOINETTE POI'bSON, MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR, 



Mississippi Valley. 

ing of the shore, about four acres square, sloping gent- 
ly to the woods in the background, and on the right 
and left of which, two deep ravines run into the bay." 
Here, in April, 1699, the French built a palisaded fort 
and log houses. Sieur de Sauville, a brother of Iber- 
ville, was placed in command, with another brother, 
Bienville, then a youth of 18, as second, after which 
Iberville sailed for France to get further supplies and 
more colonists. 

Bienville was then once more sent exploring the re- 
gion, and he learned soon that the English from the 
Atlantic coast were in constant communication with 
the Chickasaw Indians, the most aggressive tribe of the 
region. The Chickasaws even came to Lake Pont- 
chartrain, soon after the French settled at Biloxi, and 
with the aid of Englishmen fought a battle with other 
Indians there. It was an ominous piece of news, ex- 
ceedingly ominous if considered in connection with the 
English goods that Joliet had found among the Indians 
on the banks of the Mississippi during his exploration. 
The tide of English enterprise had risen so high as to 
find the passes through and around the Alleghany 
range of mountains. 

A little later Bienville saw some of the English. 
While floating around the sharp bend of the Mississippi 
where it passes near to and just west of Lake Borgne 
he met an English ship commanded by one Louis Bank, 
(or Bar, as Gayarre writes it). Bank said he was 
bringing a company of Englishmen and French Hu- 
guenots to settle on the Mississippi, and that another 
detachment of the settlers was coming overland from 
the sea under the guidance of the Chickasaws. Bien- 

57 



A History of tlic 

ville protested. He said that this river valley had been 
settled by the French for many years, and that a large 
force was near at hand. In proof of his assertion he 
called attention to the fact that he was there roaming 
about in a row boat. The Englishman blustered a lit- 




Moll's Map of 1710. 

tie but turned back to the Gulf; and that bend in the 
river has been known as the English Turn ever since. 

When, in the following December, Iberville re- 
turned and heard of this incident he immediately de- 
termined to build a fort on the river bank. Leaving 
Biloxi on this errand on January 8, 1700, he began 
work on the fort at a spot about 18 miles below the 

58 



Mississippi Valley. 

present site of New Orleans — perhaps on the Scarsdale 
plantation. He named the fort La Boulaye. 

While engaged in this work Henri de Tonti came 
paddling down the river. He was still in command 
on the Illinois, where he held the privilege of sending 
two canoe loads of beaver a year to Montreal ; but he 
thought he might find a better market by way of the 
mouth of the Great River, as La Salle had hoped to do. 
He had come down to see about the matter. A canoe 
journey of more than 1,500 miles through the wilder- 
ness, in the interest of trade, was no more to him than 
a ten-mile trolley ride is to a modern commercial trav- 
eller. 

Iberville and Bienville were so glad to meet their 
old friend that when he started home, three days later, 
they went along as far as the village of Natchez In- 
dians, standing where Natchez, Mississippi, is found 
now. As it happened a thunder storm was raging, 
when they arrived, and the lighting had just set fire to 
the temple wherein these Indians worshipped the sun. 
The Indians were insane with fear and excitement, for 
they believed the disaster was due to the anger of their 
god, and to appease him, five infants were thrown alive 
into the flames, at the commands of the medicine men. 
The incident seems to have given the Frenchmen a 
strong prejudice against these Indians. 

In the year of 1700 a notable voyage was 
made on the Mississippi by one La Sueur, a man 
who had led an adventurous life on the great 
lakes, and had come to Louisiana with Iberville 
in December, 1699. With a felucca, a small two- 
masted coaster, rigged with lateen sails, and 

59 



A History of the 

a crew of 25 men, he made his way up to 
Lake Pepin. There he built a fort, killed 400 buffaloes, 
lived on the flesh all winter, drove a good fur trade 
with the Indians, and carried back a cargo of earth 
stained blue with silicate of iron, thinking it a valuable 
ore. It was this blue earth that gave a name to Blue 
Earth River. And the Sueur's felucca was the first 
decked and ship-built vessel to make a voyage on the 
Mississippi. 

In 1 70 1 Iberville moved the larger part of his col- 
ony to Mobile Bay (named from a clan of Indians), 
and placed Bienville in command of the colony, Sau- 
ville having died meantime. Settlements had already 
been made on Dauphine and Ship Islands. The Span- 
ish at Pensacola protested that Florida extended to 
Mexico, but the matter was referred home to the two 
Governments, and the Spanish King yielded the land 
to his uncle, Louis XIV. 

As the King's colony these settlements existed until 
1 712. For about two-thirds of this time Bienville was 
Governor and was second in command during the re- 
mainder of the time. A few extracts from the records 
will sufficiently portray the ways of life in those days. 

In 1705 the arrival of a party of seventeen Canadi- 
ans is mentioned in the records as a matter of import- 
ance because they "came with the intention of making 
a permanent settlement, and had provided themselves 
with all the implements of husbandry." All the other 
settlers had come hoping to get rich quickly and then 
return to France. It is reasonable to infer that the 
Canadians raised considerable crops of corn, for in 1706 
one of Bienville's despatches says: 

60 



Mississippi Valley. 

"The males in the colony begin through habit to be 
reconciled to corn as an article of nourishment; but 
the females, who are mostly Parisians, have for this 
kind of food a dogged aversion. Hence they inveigh 
bitterly against his Grace, the Bishop of Quebec, who, 
they say, has enticed them away from home under the 
pretext of sending them to enjoy the milk and honey 
of the land of promise." 

The usual cargo of a ship from France in this per- 
iod, contained (to quote from the manifest of one of 
them), "goods, provisions, ammunition; Flesh-pots of 
France, rivalling, to a certainty, those of Egypt ; spark- 
ling wines to cheer the cup; twenty-three girls to glad- 
den the heart; five priests to minister to the soul and 
to bless holy alliances ; two sisters of charity to attend 
on the sick, and seventy-five soldiers for protection 
against the inroads of the Indians. This was some- 
thing to be thankful for." (Gayarre). 

As in Canada the Louisiana colony was governed 
by an Intendant as well as a Governor, the Intendant's 
chief business being to spy on the deeds of the Govern- 
or. In a letter dated December 7, 1706, Intendant 
Nicolas de La Salle says that the Le Moyne brothers 
were guilty of "every sort of malfeasances and dilapi- 
dations. They are rogues who pilfer away his majes- 
ty's goods and effects." 

A partisan of Bienville writes that among men 
"none was better calculated than La Salle to personate 
the toad. His mission was to secrete venom. Fat, 
short, sleek, with bloated features and oily skin. * * * 
Puffed up in conceit, an eternal smile of contentment 
was stereotyped on the gross texture of his lips." 

61 



A History of the 

The Curate de la Vente, the leader of the priests, 
was opposed to Bienville, and Bienville v^rote that La 
Vente "has tried to stir up everybody against me by his 
calumnies, and who, in the meantime, does not blush 
to keep an open shop, where his mode of trafficking 
shows that he is a shrewd compound of the Arab and 
the Jew." 

Even one of Bienville's own family helped to stir 
up strife. A nephew. Major Boisbriant, fell in love 
with the lady who was in charge of the girls brought 
out, at the King's charge, to marry colonists. She re- 
turned his passion, but Bienville refused to allow them 
to marry, on the ground that the lady was of a lower 
social rank. Thereupon the lady wrote the story of 
her woes to the Colonial Secretary, and ended it by 
saying: *Tt is therefore evident that he has not the 
necessary qualifications to govern this colony." 

It was in the condition of things that the troubles 
with the Indians should be never ending. The colony 
was weak in numbers. There were but 279 people all 
told in 1708 — and yet they were full of arrogance in 
dealing with the Indians. The Chickasaws, being 
allies of the English, were steadfast enemies. The 
Choctaws, as enemies of the Chickasaws, were encour- 
aged to go hunting both Chickasaws and English, but 
their friendship was not always to be trusted. The 
Alibamons (from whom Alabama was named), though 
nominally at peace, frequently waylaid and murdered 
the French for the sake of the plunder. And when they 
heard the French boast of the greatness and pow- 
er of the French King, these redmen asked with 
unconcealed contempt, how it happened then 

62 



Mississippi Valley. 

that this great king did not send soldiers 
to avenge the many murderous aggressions under 
which the colony had suffered. "The very existence 
of the colony is daily threatened by the Indians," says 
one account. 

But a worse picture than that remains. In 1709 
provisions became so scarce that the colonists were 
reduced to a diet of acorns, and Bienville reported that 
he had been obliged to send half his soldiers among 
the Indians because he could not obtain enough food 
for them in any other way. 

For ten years these people had been in the country. 
They had come there not merely to man forts but to 
people the region — to create a new French empire. 
They were at the gateway of the most wonderful farm- 
ing region of the world — a valley that can readily sup- 
port 200,000,000 people. And yet here they were in 
more desperate straits than the Indians whom they 
despised. 

Few words suffice to tell of the actual work in the 
interior of the great valley by the French people. Late 
in 1702, Juchereau, of Montreal, established a fur- 
buying station near, if not exactly, where Cairo, III., 
now stands. He helped to make a profit from copper 
and lead ores that had been found not far away. In 
the course of two years he built a tannery, made some 
leather, shipped out a few furs and accumulated a stock 
of 30,000 buffalo skins. Then he fled through fear of 
the Indians, (whom he had wronged, no doubt), leav- 
ing the huge store of skins to waste. 

Some prospectors went up the Missouri river, in 
1705, and built a small fort above the Ossages, but 

63 



A History of the 

it was afterward abandoned. Explorers went above 
the Natchitoches on the Red River. The coiireurs de 
hois from the upper lakes region, in some numbers, 
brought their furs to Mobile, but Bienville himself 
describes them as Canadian vagabonds leading a wan- 
dering and licentious life among the Indians, rather 
than additions to the new settlements. The indefa- 
tigable Tonti came to live at Mobile, but soon (1702) 
died of the yellow fever. In short it was, as a whole, 
a colony of paupers. 

Finding that his politicians were unable to make 
the colony self-supporting the King, on September 14, 
1 712, turned it over to Anthony Crozat, a wealthy 
merchant who undertook the task of managing it on 
business principles for fifteen years. 

Crozat was to have the exclusive privileges of the 
Louisiana trade, all mines of precious metals to be dis- 
covered were his on payment of a royalty of one- fourth 
of the yield ; he was permitted to import one ship load 
of negroes per year; the King was to pay $10,000 a 
year toward the expenses of the garrison, for nine 
years. In return Crozat was to send out "two ship 
loads" of colonists a year, and pay all the expenses 
above the King's contribution. 

La Mothe Cadillac, who, for a number of years 
had been the governor of Detroit, (at which point the 
French located on July 24, 1701), was made governor 
of Louisiana, where he arrived May 17, 171 3. The 
instructions from Crozat to Cadillac were brief in sub- 
stance, if multitudinous in words. He was to search 
"diligently" for mines, and to open a trade with Mexi- 
co — with the consent of the authorities, if that were 

64 



Mississippi Valley. 

possible, but without it if they refused. He was to 
trade with the Indians, also, of course. 

From the settHng of Biloxi, the French had traded 




A Section of Joutel's Map, 1713. 

with the Spanish of Pensacola, contrary to law, but 
now smug-g-ling was to be part of the business com- 
manded by the ruler of Louisiana. 

65 



A History of the 

The population at this time, it is said, included 
one hundred soldiers, seventy-five Canadians in the 
pay of the King-, twenty negro slaves and 300 plain 
citizens, who were much scattered, owing to the fam- 
ines that had prevailed. 

Cadillac wrote a frank description of his colony, 
on January i, 1 7 14, saying, as quoted by Gayarre: 
"The inhabitants are the scum and refuse of Canada; 
ruffians who have thus far cheated the gibbet of its 
due; vagabonds who are without subordination to the 
laws, without any respect for religion or the govern- 
ment; graceless profligates who are so steeped in vice 
that they prefer the Indian females to French women. 
* * * But what shall I say of the troops, who are 
without dicipline, and scattered among the Indians at 
whose expense they subsist?" 

To learn the ways of life under this commercial 
regime we need only read the complaints of Governor 
Cadillac, as set forth in his despatches. He quarrelled 
with the soldiers because they were "without disci- 
pline," and with their officers because they refused to 
apply to the priests for the holy sacrament, "even at 
Easter." "He complained bitterly of one officer, Capt. 
Richebourg, of the dragoons, (an officer who came to 
the colony in the ship with Cadillac) because he "se- 
duced most of the girls" sent over by the King to be- 
come wives of the colonists. These girls, Cadillac says, 
very justly, "ought to have been respected," but he 
quarrelled with them also, on arrival, because they 
did not at once find husbands. He says they were 
left on his hands because of Richebourg, but Duclos, 
the commissary, whose despatches also show an all- 

66 



Mississippi Valley. 

absorbing interest in this matter, wrote that the girls 
were "so ugly that the inhabitants are in no hurry to 
take them." 

Then came the priests who "insisted" that he ex- 
pel out of the colony two women of bad character. "I 
have refused to do so," he wrote, "because if I sent 
away all women of loose habits there would be no fe- 
males left, and this would not meet the views of the 
government. Besides, one of these girls occupies the 
position of a servant in the household of the King's 
commissary, who will, no doubt, reclaim her from her 
vicious propensities." 

There is but one reason, of course, for making 
these quotations from the official despatches. It is to 
show clearly the character of these so-called settlers 
and their habits of thought while engaged in found- 
ing a French empire in America. 

However, Cadillac did try to open trade with Mexi- 
co. In the voyage which Iberville made to Louisiana, 
in 1699, he brought an adventurous youth named 
Juchereau de St. Denis. After his arrival, St. Denis 
was a good soldier. He obeyed orders; avoided the 
ever present disputes between those over him as much 
as possible; made friends with the Indians, and went 
exploring the region west of the Mississippi, especially 
along the Red River. 

In 1 714, Cadillac sent him to Mexico. He went up 
the Red River as far as the Natchitoches, and thence 
struck out on the route to the Spanish settlements ly- 
ing along the Rio Grande, where he arrived in August. 
It was an eminently successful expedition, for St. 
Denis. He fell in love with the daughter of the Span- 

67 



A History of the 

ish Governor, was arrested as a smuggler, refused 
splendid offers to enter the Spanish service, escaped 
from prison, served as peacemaker between the fron- 
tier Spaniards and plains Indians, married the lovely 
senorita, and returned safe to the French settlements. 
A subsequent expedition made by St. Denis was not 
so fortunate even for him. He barely escaped from 
Mexico with his life. Every sou of Crozat's money 
spent in the two expeditions was lost, and large quan- 
tities of goods sent out in anticipation of a successful 
smuggling business were wasted. 

The search for mines had a similar result. As a 
rule Cadillac employed coiircnrs dc hois as prospectors, 
and they proved to be the fore-runners of the *'grub 
stake eaters" of modern days. They accepted their 
supplies of food and instruments, and going to some 
favorite Indian village gave their goods to their friends, 
and remained there until the time came to report pro- 
gress, when they returned to Cadillac for further sup- 
plies. 

Lead ore was found in southeastern Missouri. The 
lead and zinc mines in Missouri have been, and are 
now, the source of immense wealth. The French be- 
gan working the "prospect" and established a supply 
station for the miners, but they were incapable of mak- 
ing the ore profitable. 

Crozat's commercial agents did something in the 
way of establishing trading stations. Natchez, Miss- 
issippi, and Nashville, Tennessee, have grown where 
trading stations were built in 17 14. In 171 7 Cadillac 
sent a force to occupy the land of the Natchitoches 
Indians, on Red River, and in 1719 Bernard de la 

68 



Mississippi Valley. 

Harpe built Fort St. Louis de Carlorette near where 
Natchitoches now stands. 

Before Cadillac's time (in i/oo), a mission for 
the Illinois Indians had been established where Kaska- 
skia, 111., now stands. It was in 1717 a considerable 
settlement. Under the influence of the priests ploughs 
had been introduced, windmills erected and horsepower 
tread-mills constructed. 

Crozat finding no returns even from the trade in 
furs, which lesser merchants had found so profitable, 
remonstrated, and Cadillac replied : 

"What! Is it expected that for any commercial or 
profitable purpose boats will ever be able to run up the 
Mississippi, into the Wabash, the Missouri, or the Red 
River? One might as well try to bite a slice off the 
moon." 

One quotation from the despatches will suffice for 
Cadillac's Indian policy. He wrote: 

"I have persuaded the brother of the great chief 
of the Choctaws to kill his sovereign, and brother, 
pledging myself to recognize him as his successor. He 
did so and came here with an escort of 100 men. I 
gave him presents and secured from him an advan- 
tageous peace." 

On June 22, 171 6, Cadillac wrote a despatch say- 
ing: 

"Decidedly this colony is a monster without head 
or tail, and its government is a shapeless absurdity." 
The minister of the colonies department, for a reply, 
added a postscript to a letter from Crozat, saying : 

"The Governor, La Mothe Cadillac, and the com- 
missary, Duclos, whose intellects are not equal to the 

69 



A History of the 

functions with which His Majesty has instructed them, 
are dismissed from office." 

On August 13, 1 71 7, Crozat, having concluded that 
his intellect was not equal to the task of managing 
Louisiana on business principles, surrendered his con- 
tract to the King. 

John Law, with his wondrous schemes of finance, 
then took hold of the colony through what he called 
the Mississippi company. Law at 23 years of age, fled 
for his life from England. By his love for deep play 
and his gallantries "he had squandered a fortune." In 
a duel he had killed a man — unfairly, it is presumed, — 
for he was tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged, 
on a charge of murder. On the continent he intro- 
duced the game of faro, and won large sums — more 
than 2,000,000 francs, it is said. He established a 
private bank in Paris, (May, 1716), that received 
Government support. Louis XIV. had died on Sept. 
I, 171 5. Louis XV. was then a child of five years, and 
the Duke of Orleans ruled as Regent. Louis XIV. had 
left France with a debt of 80,000,000 livres, while 
the new ruler could, at best, raise 9,000,000. Law 
proposed solving the difficulty of paying eighty mil- 
lions with nine by issuing notes based on the real estate 
of the nation — a million in paper money for every two 
millions assessed valuation of the real estate. The 
scheme was accepted. There was soon an abundance 
of "money" in the nation. Prices rose steadily; with 
each issue of "money" prices rose in geometrical ratio. 
Fortunes were made in a day. Law became such a 
favorite with the Regent that he "was admitted into 
all the licentious privacies of the Palais Royal." 

70 




LOUIS XV., KING OF FRANCE. 



Mississippi Valley. 

On September 6, 171 7, when his schemes were 
dazzling all France, he floated the Mississippi com- 
pany. This company was to develop the boundless 
resources of the great valley — to take up the work in 
which Crozat had failed. The valley was to be peo- 
pled ; a great commerce between it and France created ; 
the smuggling trade with Spanish-America was to be 
promoted; mines of gold and silver were to be dis- 
covered and many of those of the Spanish were to be 
appropriated, while the fur trade, already established, 
was to be greatly enlarged. And all this for the benefit 
of Law's bank. England had, just then, a South Sea 
bubble. That company (it was established in 1710), 
did not fail until 1720, and it was therefore reaching 
its greatest reputation when Law floated his Mississippi 
scheme. Law was familiar with the plans successfully 
used by the South Sea Company to "boom" their 
shares, and his Mississippi company was managed in 
much the same way. 

Pamphlets were distributed setting forth the won- 
ders of the Mississippi Valley. The deposit that could 
be filtered from the water of the river yielded gold in 
immense quantities, said these pamphlets, and bars 
alleged to be of this gold were placed in the shop win- 
dows of Paris. The liquid found in the cup of a cer- 
tain flower, in Louisiana, turned to a diamond in a 
single night, at a certain season, and diamonds from 
these flowers, as alleged, were also on exhibition. 

Men of money fought for place in the line when 
the books of the Mississippi company were opened for 
subscriptions. 

For a time, too, people — especially those of broken 
7T 



A History of the 

fortune, and all who were of undue greed — flocked to 
the company's ships that were sent to the Mississippi ; 
but this human tide began to ebb within a year; for 
they learned the truth, on landing, of course, and they 
found means to tell the facts in France where their 
stories of hardship were exaggerated as much as the 
real productiveness of the region had been. 

Then the company, under due license, resorted to 
press gangs to fill the necessary quota of emigrants. 
These gangs swept the beggars from the streets, the 
tramps from the highways, the vile from the houses 
of correction. With these were taken some whose sole 
offence was the mistake of having offended people 
of influence, while others were carried to the shipping 
ports in order to extort blackmail. 

In spite of these frauds and outrages, however, 
some real work was done in Louisiana. Even John 
Law, though a thief and a murderer, was to leave his 
mark on the Mississippi River. 

When Law's company took charge of Louisiana, 
Bienville, who was really the only man of notable 
ability in the colony, was made governor once more, 
and his first work under his new commission was to 
be of lasting importance to the Mississippi Valley. 

The fort built by Iberville on the bank of the Missis- 
sippi had been abandoned. Bienville had wished to 
build a new one at a point higher up the river, while 
Cadillac ruled, but Cadillac refused permission. Now 
Bienville could do as he pleased, and the new fort 
was at once planned. 

The point at which he determined to build is of 
special interest. In his travels through the neighbor- 

72 



Mississippi Valley. 

hood Bienville had observed that two bayous running 
from Lake Pontchartrain were "navigable by small 
sea-going vessels to within a mile of the bank of the 




New Orleans 1728. 

Mississippi." There was an Indian portage from one 
of these bayous to the great river. Bienville had 
passed his youth in Canada — ^he saw that a trading sta- 

73 



A History of the 

tion built where this trail reached the Mississippi would 
have communication with all points on the Great River 
and its tributaries, and at the same time, would, by the 
back door of Lake Pontchartram, reach with equal 
ease the region to the east. A fort there would com- 
mand the river, and, in a way, Lakes Pontchartrain 
and Maurepas, and the waters beyond. 

On an unnamed day in February, soon after the 
arrival of his commission, Bienville sent "twenty-five 
convicts, and as many carpenters, with some voyageurs 
from the Illinois," to the river end of that portage trail. 
A narrow strip of dry land was found there. It lay 
about ten feet above the ordinary stage of the river 
surface, but had been formed by deposits of sediment 
made when the river was flooding high. This bank 
was plainly subject to overflow, and the slope toward 
the lake reached the swamp level a mile back of the 
river. But Bienville was willing to risk the damage 
that extra high water might do, and the convicts and 
carpenters he sent there, cleared away the moss- 
covered trees and underbrush. 

Then they built on the height of land a straggling 
row of houses having log walls that were not snake 
proof, bark roofs that were not rain proof and chim- 
neys — fire places — made of sticks plastered over with 
thick masses of clay. And to these shelters came 
"three companies of infantry and a small body of colo- 
nists," on March 9, 1718. 

In such fashion was the great city of New Orleans 
founded. 



74 




LOUIS XIV., KING OF FRANCE. 




V 



INDIANS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

The Pathetic Story of a Race of Children Who Were 
Taken from Their Play and Set at the Work of 
Butchers and Scalp Hunters — Indian Motives Com- 
pared with Those of the Whites — Story of a Kansas 
Real Estate Agent and Charlie Ouapaw — The Mora- 
vian and the Quaker Methods of Treating Indians 
Considered — The Most Important Statement in This 
Book. 



With the founding of the city of New Orleans the 
movement which was to people the valley of the Missis- 
sippi with the white race and displace the red men, was 
fully begun. For while Father Gravier was making 
ploughs and horse-power tread-mills at Kaskaskia, 
and Bienville was working after a fashion at New 
Orleans, the British colonies were spreading to the Alle- 



A History of the 

ghanies. Gov. Spotswood of Virginia, with fifty fol- 
lowers, "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," and "an 
abundant variety of liquors" went (1716) to the crest 
of the Blue Ridge, where with his eyes to the west "he 
took possession of this place, in the name and for King 
George the First, drank the King's health in cham- 
pagne, and fired a volley." From this height, or some 
other, he saw that "the British plantations are sur- 
rounded." The French are in position, he said, not on- 
ly to "engross the whole skin trade," but to "send such 
bodies of Indians on the back of these plantations" 
as might "greatly distress his Majesty's subjects here." 

The remedy for these well-seen evils was to form 
settlements beyond the range, and in saying so Gov. 
Spotswood voiced the sentiment of nearly all the think- 
ing people in the British colonies. 

Therefore mighty hosts were to gather, later on, 
at the passes of the Alleghanies — mighty, if few by 
count, and sometimes not well ordered. The volley 
which Spottswood fired while on the crest of the Blue 
Ridge, though fired with powder only, and heard no 
further west than the springs that fed the Shenandoah, 
— was in a way the first in the conflict that drove 
the foolish cackling French from their stations in the 
Great Basin, and with many whirligigs of dust and 
smoke, swept the red nations into the refuse heaps, 
unpleasant enough to look at, that we call reservations. 

It seems necessary, therefore, to stop here and con- 
sider what manner of men these Indians were original- 
ly; what influence the white men had upon their char- 
acter; what rights they had in the land, and in what 
ways and how far their rights were violated. 

76 



Mississippi Valley. 

In the days between Champlain's battle on the 
outlet of Lake Champlain, (1610), and the found- 
ing of the city of New Orleans, (1718), the important 
families or "linguistic stocks" of Indians occupying the 
Mississippi Valley were the Algonquian, the Siouan, 
the Iroquoian, the Muskhogean and the Cadoan. They 
covered the whole region save only for six spots, rel- 
atively very small, that were occupied by small com- 
munities, having languages of their own, the remnants, 
very likely, of ancient tribes that had been reduced to 
insignificance by the inexorable law of the survival 
of the fittest. 

The location of these families are shown at a glance 
in a map prepared by Major J. W. Powell ("Linguistic 
Stocks of American Indians North of Mexico"). 

Of the different tribes into which the families were 
divided, some account may be given here. Along the 
Alleghanies were the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choc- 
taws and Creeks, though the Creeks were mainly found 
in what is now Georgia, and had an offshoot in Flori- 
da, called Seminoles. In 1785 they were supposed to 
number 70,000 souls. The Cherokees were Iroquoian, 
the others Muskhogean. One writer believes there were 
9,500 warriors among the Southern Indians. 

Northwest of the Ohio, in the i8th century, were 
the Shawanees, Delawares and Miamis, of Algonquian 
stock, with the Wyandots, (a remnant of the old Hu- 
rons), and as years passed, many of the Iroquois con- 
federation who were here called Mingos. Mingled with 
these, when the whites came to the Ohio, were indi- 
viduals from further west — Pottawattomies, Ottawas, 
Chippewas and Foxes. Andrew McFarland Davis, 

77 



, A History of the 

of the American Antiquarian Society, estimated, (Win- 
sor's "History of America"), that "there were about 
35,000 warriors east of the Mississippi, in the United 
States and across the straits at Detroit," at the time 
of the war of the Revokition. The Shawnese, at that 
time, had about 300 warriors, the Delawares 600 and 
the Wyandotts 200 — all northwest of the Ohio. The 
Iroquois had 2,000 warriors. What was known as the 
"Ottawa Confederation" — a loose aggregation of west- 
ern tribes — had 8,000 warriors, of whom 3,000 lived 
near Detroit," (Winsor). 

Most interesting is a study of the characteristics of 
the red people as they existed before they came in 
contact with white men. Let the reader who is not 
familiar with the matter forget what his school histories 
taught him, put aside his prejudices, whatever they 
may be. Above all let him put aside for the present 
what the men who have lived among modern Indians 
have to say about them. Parkman, for instance, 
thought he had learned the characteristics of the aho- 
rigines by living among a tribe that had been trading 
with white men for more than 200 years. Let the 
judgments of such men be put aside, and then consider 
what the scientific ethnologists have learned and print- 
ed, after long and patient labor, about the American 
aborigines. The reader who has seen the modern 
Indian and like Parkman, has lived among them, should 
be especially careful not to allow prejudice to influence 
him. For it has been shown that the dog soup, dirt 
and carnivorous insects of the wigwam and tepee 
almost invariably prejudice a clean man's mind so 
that he is incapable of rendering a fair judgment. 

78 



Mississippi Valley. 

Scientific investigation has learned first of all that 
it was not a roaming or nomadic people. It is true 
that a party of the Siouan people had gone away from 
the original family home to settle at Biloxi. Another 
party had become Catawbas living on the east side of 
the Alleghanies. The Shawnees had lived in various 
localities. But these were migrations of sedentary 
people, — migrations due to family quarrels — and were 
not the wanderings of nomads. The nearest approach 
to a nomadic life was found on the plains where such 
tribes as the Pawnees followed migratory herds of buf- 
falo for limited distances. 

Being sedentary, the tribes were, as a whole, devel- 
oping into agriculturalists — becoming farmers. "They 
were fast progressing from the hunter state," says 
Powell in "Indian Linguistic Families." Corn was the 
chief of their cultivated foods. In the Jesuit "Rela- 
tions" one of the missionaries speaks of a Huron chief 
who had two caches of corn, each containing 125 bush- 
els. That was in Canada. In the south the corn crop 
reached tens of thousands of bushels. 

More notable still some of the Indians were on 
the threshold of taming wild animals for domestic use. 
The Creeks of each village refrained from hunting 
over certain tracts of land where products of the forest 
relished by bears, abounded, until the bears there be- 
came both fat and tame. Then when meat was needed 
a bear was quietly killed. Precautions were taken to 
keep the bears tame, that is to say, and the range well 
stocked. 

To say that the tribes were sedentary implies that 
they had dwellings of more or less substantial char- 

79 



A History of the 

acter. The Iroquoians and other northern tribes built 
great shelters of poles covered with bark. The Dacotah 
Sioux covered the poles with buffalo skins. The 
Pawnees built houses with sod walls. The Natches and 
the Quapaws built houses with a latticed frame covered 
with adobe clay. The Cherokees and Muskhogean 
built good log houses. It is a right curious fact that 
the red men learned to build thick dirt walls to keep 
out heat before they learned to use such walls to keep 
out cold. 

Of the Indian canoes and dugouts as means of 
transportation only mere mention seems necessary. 

The Indian had developed the art of making pot- 
tery, baskets and cloth. They made sufficient tools of 
stone, shells and wood. Some that had native copper 
had learned to beat it into ornaments with a skill 
that the whites who first came to America were unable 
to surpass. They had, indeed, begun to develop the 
higher talent of the artist and they had made the first 
steps toward a written language. 

There is, perhaps, nothing more interesting in the 
story of the red American than the few facts we know 
about their culture of the higher faculties — their 
groping after something that was not a necessary of 
life. 

Consider their first steps in the development of a 
written language. One may presume that their at- 
tempts to write out ideas grew out of their sign lan- 
guage, or were suggested by it. And it is not difficult 
to think that the sign language was developed before 
articulate speech. 

Many ideas were conveyed by movements and 
80 



Mississippi Valley. 

postures of the body — by living pictures, that is to 
say. A Dacotah standing on one hsLuk of a river saw 
strangers on the further side and held aloft his left 
hand to ask, "Who are you ?" And one of the strangers 
put two fingers of each hand up above his head in a 
way to suggest the sharp, peaked-up ears of the wolf, 
and thus replied, "We are wolves — Pawnees." 

From making these living pictures it was but a 
short step, easily taken, to the painting or carving of 
pictures that would convey ideas. They had learned 
to paint and carve some pictures of their sign language 
on their pottery, on wood and on smooth stones. Most 
remarkable are some of the rock carvings that are yet 
to be found along the Mississippi and its branches. 
Pictures of men, beasts, birds, reptiles and insects 
abound. With these are found pictures of the tracks 
of men and animals, and of figures and lines oft re- 
peated that represent nothing to our minds. 

Many essays and books have been written about the 
picture writing of American Indians — works that 
usually describe rather than explain the Indian pictures 
— but some advance in comprehending this red litera- 
ture has been made by the scientific specialists. Says 
Mr. James Mooney, ( Seventeenth annual report Bureau 
of Ethnology) : 

"It is known that our own tribes had various ways of de- 
picting their mythology, their totems, or isolated facts in the 
life of individual or nation, but it is only within a few years 
that it was even suspected that they could have anything like 
continuous historical records, even in embryo. 

"The fact is nozv established, however, that pictographic 
records, covering periods of from sixty to perhaps 200 years or 
more, do or did exist among several tribes, and it is entirely 
probable that every leading mother tribe had such a record of 

81 



A History of the 

its origin and wanderings, the pictured narrative being compiled 
by the priests and preserved with sacred care through all the 
shifting vicissitudes of savage life, until lost or destroyed in the 
ruin that overwhelmed the native governments at the coming of 
the white men." 

Time was when all of these tribal histories might 
have been gathered, or copies made. The white men 
might have learned exactly what ideas the Indians in- 
tended to convey when making some of the noted pic- 
tures now called petrographs. For when the first mis- 
sionaries and the first traders went among the Indians 
the art of stone writing was at its best. But because 
Indian art work or culture was commonly found in 
connection with Indian religion, our missionaries were 
shocked by the "idolatrous exhibits," and strove in 
earnest, well-meaning fashion, to turn the Indian 
thoughts from pictured totems, and dreams of happy 
hunting grounds, to a conception of a cubical city 
built of jewel stones, and having streets paved with 
gold. 

As for the traders who might have learned some- 
thing about this latest development of Indian culture — 
this picture writing — it is enough to say that the one 
thought constantly animating their minds was to ex- 
change a pint of rum, or six cents' worth of red paint, 
for a beaver skin worth ten dollars in the white settle- 
ments. The poet-naturalist of Concord wrote that 
"trade curses everything it handles," and no men in 
the history of civilization and commerce have been so 
fully engrossed or so utterly degraded and deeply 
cursed by their trade as those who have dealt with the 
aboriginal inhabitants of the earth. With them even 
a thought of fair dealing was, (and is) , a manifestation 

82 



J3P|0l|3De|d 

;no-piod 




Mississippi Valley. 

of contemptible weakness; the ability to over reach 
the sauvage was the only feature of mind worth praise 
or cultivation. 

In short, through egotistical prejudice and foul 
greed, we threw away — refused to gather — the full 
knowledge of how men in the stone age of the world 
began to develop their higher faculties. 

Nevertheless some knowledge remains. A glance 
at the arrow heads with notched edges; at the bas- 
kets and pottery, illuminated with the lightning flashes 
from the thunder god, and at the ornaments of beaten 
copper, shows unmistakably that a love of the beautiful 
was growing among them, and that many of their 
products portrayed the joy of the artist in his work. 

Consider next the subject of aboriginal warfare. 
It is in connection with this subject that one needs to 
forget what his school histories teach him. Says Major 
Powell in "Indian Linguistic Families"; (p. 39) : 

"Altogether the character of the Indian since the 
discovery of Columbus has been greatly changed, and 
he has become far more war-like and predatory. Prior 
to that time, tribes seem to have lived together in 
comparative peace, and to have settled their difficulties 
by treaty methods. Their accumulations were not so 
great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare 
were not exceedingly destructive. * * * Battle for 
plunder, tribute and conquest was almost unknown. 
Such intertribal wars as occurred originated from 
other causes, such as infractions of rights relating to 
hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener preju- 
dices growing out of their superstitions." 

For the sake of emphasis let this be repeated. 
83 



A History of the 




Remains. 

Of ai\ 

Fouud on tke SciOta Haver 
DISTRICT of CJBILICOTBB. 

Wa,lls aij) J'eet ' m. heijht. 



84 



Mississippi Valley. 

Although the red men "had not yet entered completely 
into the agricultural condition,'* they "were fast pro- 
gressing from the hunter state." "Battles for plunder, 
tribute and conquest were almost unknown." 

War never was and never will be advantageous to 
mankind as a whole, however necessary at times be- 
tween nations; but for the red men such wars as oc- 
curred before the whites came were not an unmixed 
evil. For they fought hand to hand, or at close range; 
they fought for the love of their country and for glory. 
Thus they learned to face death with unruffied minds, 
and to covet something higher than physical wealth. 

Then, too, through wars they built fortifications — 
they became mound builders, though their mounds 
were also erected for the purpose of worship. Many 
earthen forts were found in the Mississippi valley, and 
we know, now, that it was not some prehistoric tribe 
of superior intelligence that built them. Nothing 
proves the white man's lack of intelligent observation 
so conclusively as does this now abandoned notion 
about a prehistoric tribe of superior attainments. 

Consider one of these Indian fortifications — that 
one built where Marietta, Ohio, now stands. There 
was one square fort, fifty acres in extent (one authori- 
ty says forty), and another twenty-seven, (or twenty) 
large. The walls were from twenty to thirty feet wide 
on the base when surveyed. It is fair to presume that 
these earth walls were originally surmounted by pali- 
sades, for wooden forts were common enough. 

There were other works of less extent, in and 
near these two, including elevated mounds within the 
squares, a guarded passage way, 680 feet long, to the 

85 



A History of the 

Muskingum river, a well-protected cemetery, an en- 
closed field, a large camp ground, &c. 

At least ten thousand cubic yards of earth were 
piled into the walls of the passageway that led down the 
hillside toward the Muskingum, and how many thou- 
sands in the remaining walls need not now be calculated. 
What should be considered is the fact that the Indians 
had neither shovels nor wheel barrows when they built 
these walls. How many days, therefore, did they la- 
bor in digging the earth with their rude tools and 
carrying it up by hand to build those walls ? And yet 
we have been told in our school histories that the In- 
dian was by nature lazy! 

Huge mounds were built for graves, as well as 
for war. The structure that gives its name to Mounds- 
viHe on the Ohio, is as interesting as any. It is one hun- 
dred feet in diameter at the base, sixty-eight feet high 
and fifty-five in diameter at the top. The mound was tun- 
neled at the surface of the earth, in 1838, and a shaft 
was sunk from the top down to the tunnel. Thirteen 
skeletons, with shell beads, copper rings and plates 
of mica for ornaments, were found in two vaults that 
had been lined and covered with timbers. 

It is evident that the Indian would work when he 
had a motive that he considered adequate, but his mo- 
tives were not always those of the whites. The white 
man who turned the tunnel in Moundsville mound into 
a lager-beer saloon, some years ago, was, doubtless, 
animated by some motives which the red builders of the 
mound could not have comprehended. And that white 
man undoubtedly held the entire red race in contempt. 

We have now arrived at what really is the red 
86 



Mississippi Valley. 

man — that Is, at the motives that inspired him to ac- 
tion; for all men should be judged, at last, by their 
aspirations. 

To learn what the Indian motives were, consider 
first that every red settlement was literally a communi- 
ty, especially in the food supply. "The hungry In- 
dian had but to ask to receive * * * j^ ^^2.5 his right 
to demand" a share. 

"Indiscriminate hospitality" followed. We see 
herein one feature of Indian life that attracted many 
white men. The white visitors might eat, even though 
they could not provide food for themselves or others. 
With men of the habits of thought of the white race, 
this "indiscriminate hospitality" would, and does, de- 
stroy industry and thrift. Free food at the kitchen 
door adds to the number of tramps. It is believed 
by some philosophers that the selfish love of money — 
the desire to get rich — is all that sustains the push 
of enterprise. 

But among the Indians, game was killed and 
shared, corn was cultivated and shared, and clothing, 
tools and weapons were made and shared, year after 
year, without pauperizing the race. The race made 
progress, in fact, in spite of the influence of a custom 
that would, it is alleged, pauperize the white race. 

How did it happen, then, that work was done, and 
progress achieved without the spur of greed? Says 
Powell : "The peculiar institutions prevailing in this 
respect gave to each tribe or clan a profound interest 
in the skill, ability and industry of each member. He 
was the most valuable person in the community who 
supplied it with the most of its necessities. For this 

87 



A History of the 

reason the successful hunter or fisherman zvas alzvays 
held in high honor', and the woman who gathered great 
store of seeds, fruits or roots, was one zvho commanded 
the respect and received the highest approbation of the 
people. 

A desire for honor among his people was the chief 
motive that inspired the Indian. And the Jesuits in 
their "Relations" tell of Indians who, in the pursuit 
of game, continued the chase until death from ex- 
haustion overtook them. For the sake of standing 
well in his community the Indian zvould sometimes 
zvork till he died. For killing game was unquestion- 
ably work with the Indians; it required much more 
strength and endurance than digging ditches or build- 
ing forts. 

But the common motive of the white man made no 
appeal to him. 

A Kansas real estate dealer was once good enough 
to go with the writer of this chapter into the Ouapaw 
reservation. There, as it happened, we met Ouapaw 
Charlie, the Indian chief. And as the real estate deal- 
er and the Indian looked at each other, a feeling of 
contempt, deep and unrestrained, appeared in the face 
of the white man, and found expression in his words. 
That Indian had a thousand acres of the fattest land 
of America. If he would but cultivate it he might 
sell the produce for $5,000 a year, clear profit, and 
rapidly accumulate those evidences of wealth for which 
the white race strives. But there he lived in a little 
log hut with its acre or two of corn and vegetables. 
He killed rabbits, quails and prairie chickens, now 
and then, and he often fished in the nearby stream; 

88 



Mississippi Valley. 

but his food was coarse and his clothing worse. The 
Kansas man did not beheve God meant that such be- 
ings should cumber the earth. 

But while the Kansas man talked the Indian gazed 
back at him with a feeling of contempt equally deep 
and hearty. The Kansas man had been "booming" a 
townsite. He had been working day and night. His 
eyes were red from lack of sleep. His hands trem- 
bled from nervous exhaustion. The "boom" had "gone 
broke." Rest and peace were words but dimly under- 
stood by this feverishly energetic man of business. 
Could he have come into the possession of Charlie 
Ouapaw's acres he would have obtained less comfort 
from them than the Indian did, for he would have 
surveyed a town site immediately, and started another 
"boom," with all its deadly nervous exhaustion. :•■ 

Ouapaw Charlie was not condemned by this white 
man for failing to use his abundant leisure in the study 
of literature, or the study of art, or the study of nat- 
ure. He was not condemned for any ill use of leisure. 
He was condemned for having leisure. Why didn't 
he plow and sow and reap from sun to sun, and do the 
chores by lantern light? That was the query of the 
indignant man from Kansas. 

The bald truth is that the Indian's habit of thought 
was in exact accord with the Christian precept which 
says; "Having food and raiment be ye therewith con- 
tent." And he used some of his abundant leisure in 
ornamenting his weapons, and in making petrographs. 

The Indian government was. perhaps, the loosest 
bond that ever held peoples together. It was a simple 
democracy so far as it was like anything called govern- 

89 



A History of the 




Ancient Fonificatisas Qe» Newaik, Licking Couotyt ObiSeM 



90 



Mississippi Valley. 

ment among the whites. Important matters were con- 
sidered by the whole people in open council, and in 
these councils the women often had a part, and their 
advice was considered. The majority of the whole 
tribe decided to follow this or that course; in many 
cases a tribe would unanimously agree on some im- 
portant matter. But when a majority considered one 
course advisable the minority was free to follow its 
own course; and even when all were agreed, their 
fickleness soon divided them. 

As for the chiefs, the whole community constantly 
weighed the merits of each member of it, and the in- 
dividual's influence was in exact proportion to his abili- 
ties. A war chief was an able fighting man; the sa- 
chems were the most astute statesmen and diplomats. 
But the ruler ruled only by influence — by advice and 
example — not as a despot. Each individual might do 
as he pleased even to making war when peace had been 
declared by the chiefs. 

By dwelling on the good qualities only of the In- 
dian, one easily comes to believe that he was. If a 
"little lower than the angels," not far from as good as 
the white man. It is worth while to remember that 
he was of a lower race — one far less developed than 
the white race. In ferocity the American Indians were 
unsurpassed. They continually acted on the theory 
that "hanging was too good" for certain offences. They 
burned captured enemies to death, and prolonged the 
torture. In doing this they were animated by various 
motives; they did it for revenge and to awe the tribe 
to which the prisoner belonged, hoping thus to prevent 
future aggressions in the same direction. 

91 



A History of the 

That is to say they tortured a prisoner to death — 
burned him ahve — in order "to protect their homes." 

They sometimes tortured prisoners at the stake 
through rehgious motives — as a duty to their gods — 
but never to make converts, or restrain conscience. 

But behind all these motives was the pleasure which 
undeveloped men, and degenerates, feel when they see 
another in pain. As a race these undeveloped men 
found intense delight in the prolonged suffering of 
their victims. When La Salle's agents went among 
the Iroquois to get permission to build a fort at Niaga- 
ra, a victim was burned by way of entertaining them. 

It is asserted by some writers that ferocity was 
cultivated as a virtue, and pity condemned as a vice 
by the Indian. It is certain that in their gatherings 
each man rose to his feet and boasted of his deeds of 
prowess — of the scalps he had taken, and the tortures 
he had inflicted. It was not idle boasting either. The 
scalps were in evidence, the audience knew the state- 
ments to be true. And when they approved the boast- 
ing words the hearts of the boys burned with an eager 
ambition to do deeds of which they might boast in like 
manner. Red boys were taught to hunt for scalps. 
But in the course of nature — of evolution — the har- 
vesting of corn, and the making of copper ornaments, 
and the carving of petrographs, were coming to oc- 
cupy much more time than the gathering of scalps. 
They were taming themselves while they tamed wolves 
and made preserves for bears. 

The Indian's idea of love has been much discussed, 
but we will never doubt that red mothers loved their 
children as white mothers love theirs. In the rela- 

92 



Mississippi Valley. 

tions between the sexes, however, it seems impossible 
that what we call heroic unselfish love, (such, for in- 
stance, as Ruskin bore for his unworthy wife), was 
ever known among them. Passion was unrestrained. 
Indulgence was no cause for shame. The unfaithful 
wife was sometimes punished. Grosseilliers and Rad- 
isson "observed with much admiration," says a Jesuit 
writer, "that one tribe of Indians cut off the noses" of 
unfaithful wives. The unfaithful man was, of course, 
never punished. The man without sin could not be 
found to cast the first stone. The Indians had no con- 
ception of what we call sexual morality. The girls 
might do as they pleased. The guests of the tribe — 
even the white trader who came to swindle therrt, in 
after years — received not only his food, but a wife. 
And when the Indian came to visit the whites he was, 
at times, not a little astonished and indignant because 
they were not equally hospitable. In short, the Indians 
were w'holly unmoral in sexual matters. In some 
tribes they were too vile to be discussed by self re- 
specting men. 

In other morals they were little better. They would 
lie for fun, and for gain. It is true that treaties be- 
tween the whites and the Indians were usually broken 
by the whites. It would have afflicted an Indian with 
syncope had he moved swiftly enough to get ahead 
of the whites in breaking treaties. Nevertheless, it is 
certain that the aboriginal Indians would strive by 
lying and deceit to gain advantages over their neigh- 
bors. And all of this but proves that he was a lower 
race of men — that is, not so far developed as the whites. 

In religion the Indian believed in many super- 
93" 



A History of the 

natural beings or spirits. He did not believe in one 
supreme Gitche Manitou until the white man came. 
The early missionaries were led into error, in this 
matter, by asking leading questions. The religion 
of the Indian was, in short, a belief in devils — a be- 
lief quite as sincere and as intelligent as that of Milton, 
however. Among the Natchez, and apparently among 
some Arkansas Indians, they had arrived at that state 
of mental development where men were employed con- 
tinually as priests. It was a cruel priesthood. The 
whole system of Indian worship was, essentially, a 
series of attempts to bribe the gods into granting fa- 
vors and withholding evils, but their fear of devils 
was very much stronger and more influential with them 
than their hope of pleasures. 

Nevertheless, if approached with sympathy, in- 
stead of prejudice — if the student is not quite sure 
that he has a monopoly of the knowledge of God — 
the Indian religions, so far as known, are worth study. 
The Indians saw in the blossoms of spring "the power 
that catches out of chaos charcoal, water, lime, or 
what not, and fastens them down into a given form," 
and they called that power a spirit. "And we shall 
not diminish but strengthen our conception of this 
creative energy by recognizing its presence in lower 
states of matter than our own," for it is "properly 
called spirit." He saw that the bird "is little more 
than a drift of air brought into form by plumes," and 
that "in the throat of the bird is given the voice of 
the air." A spirit was made tangible in this drift and 
voice of air. A god that was not always evil was 
found "in that running brook of horror on the ground," 

94 



Mississippi Valley. 

the serpent. They beheved gods move in a mysterious 
way their wonders to perform, and plant their foot- 
steps in the sea and ride upon the storm. As they 
gazed into the glories of the sunset they thought and 
said they "could almost see, through opening vistas 
into heaven." And when the milky way lay white 
across the vault of the purple night they said with 
hushed voices, "it is the pathway of the departed souls." 

They had an unquestioning faith in the immortality 
of the soul. Whenever a Natchez chief died, says 
Father le Petit, (Jesuit Relations, vol. xlviii), "the 
women (wives) are always strangled to follow (him), 
except when they have infants at the breast, in which 
case they continue to live for the purpose of nourish- 
ing them. And zve often see many zvho endeavor to 
-find nurses, or who themselves strangle their infants 
so that they shall not lose the right of sacriUcing them- 
selves." Neither by argument or force could the 
French keep these wives from following their dead 
chiefs. They had never heard of a city whose walls 
were made of diamonds and whose streets were paved 
with gold, but they dreamed of a land where lakes and 
streams and prairies and forests and hills and mountains 
forever charmed the eye ; where the ills of life were un- 
known; where peace reigned; where friends gathered; 
where joy was untainted. And to that land they fain 
would go. 

Unfortunately for the race the Indians saw the 
work of an evil spirit and nothing else in almost every 
case of sickness. The work of their medicine men was 
horrible and destructive. Their practices killed where 
rational nursing would have saved. The villages of the 

95 



'A History of the 

Indians generated diseases because of the utter lack of 
knowledge of the proper way to dispose of offal. They 
were inexpressibly filthy. They were worse even than 
the modern white villagers who dig wells between 
barns and cesspools, and ascribe the subsequent cases 
of sickness to the providence of God. 

We think of the Indians as a healthy race, made 
robust by hardships endured in early life. It is a 
savage as w^ell as an erroneous idea. The Indian suf- 
fered hardships and tortures voluntarily in order to 
toughen his fibre, and such acts helped him mentally, 
very likely, but they weakened his body. The lack of 
sanitation, the hardships of unsheltered lives, the prac- 
tices due to superstition, and famine due to thoughtless 
Indulgence, were the chief causes of death among the 
Indians. Inability to cope with disease, and to look 
ahead to a time when food w^ould surely be scarce, were 
the causes that exterminated some tribes, rather than 
war — that is to say, in the days before the whites came. 
Other tribes survived because their habits and practices 
were less destructive. 

As one reads of the life of the Indians when the 
whites first saw them, and as one gains a knowledge 
of their lives as seen by whites among them, even in 
the modern days, it becomes evident that the red men 
were in many ways merely a human race less de- 
veloped than the whites, and with a smaller capacity for 
self-development. "They are like children," has been 
said by a thousand white men who knew them well. 
The words are accurately descriptive. They were, and 
they are children. In their villages they drummed and 
sang and danced, day and night ; they played tricks and 

96 



Mississippi Valley. 

cracked jokes and told stories that made the audiences 
shout with laughter. 

To these tribes of undeveloped men — of children — 
came the whites bringing a book which, they said, 
(and believed), contained the Word of Life. Two 
courses were then open to the whites in their treat- 
ment of the Indians, and very good directions for fol- 
lowing each course were to be found in their Word of 
Life. There was the method of dealing with men 
which was laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. 
A notable command, (not yet fully comprehended), 
that was found in connection with the Sermon on the 
Mount plan said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself," and the context of this command explained 
that it was to be applied more particularly to inferior 
people. The white men might have followed this plan, 
if they had comprehended it, but they didn't compre- 
hend it. The story of the Son of God coming to the 
earth to serve beings lozver than angels was as pearls 
under their feet. 

The other plan was found in the account of the 
Israelitish invasion of Canaan. The whites who came 
to America comprehended that plan very well, but they 
didn't adopt that either. They believed themselves 
the true and only accepted children of God, and that 
a Canaan was before them, but they could not bring 
themselves to wage a war of extermination against 
the red inhabitants. For they had left their homes 
proclaiming in one way and another that the first ob- 
ject of their migration was "to preach and baptize 
into the Christian religion, and by the propagation of 
the Gospel, to recover out of the armies of the devil, 

97 



A History of the 

a number of poor and miserable souls wrapt up unto 
death in almost invincible ignorance, * * * and to 
add our myte to the Treasury of Heaven," They did 
not wish to add their "myte" by immediately exter- 
minating all the Indians. 

Carlyle said that "true Guidance [is] properly, if 
he knew it, the prime want of man." It was the prime 
want of the red men, (and of all undeveloped men), 
beyond question, and it ought to have been given to 
him in a way that would have enforced "loving obe- 
dience." The thought is idle now, but suppose the 
whites had asked the Indians for pottery or baskets 
or corn, instead of furs, offering in exchange house- 
hold implements and tools as well as the harmless if 
silly mirrors, beads and trinkets. It is almost con- 
ceivable that all whites, being professed Christians, 
might have treated all Indians as the Quakers did 
some, or as the Moravians treated the Delawares in 
Gnadenhutten, (the story of which shall be told) — 
might have turned the wildmen into industrious, peace- 
loving agriculturists, thus deciding the land question 
before it arose. 

It is conceivable that the whites might have given 
the Indian herded cattle and tame fowls, in time, and 
thus have fixed him in his sedentary pursuits, while 
they promoted his mental powers by a demand for the 
simple goods and ornaments he was able to make. 
They might have made a Gnadanhuttcn of every In- 
dian village in the land. This is the most important 
statement in this book. The Moravians took wild 
Delawares — Indians who lived wild lives, and were, 
moreover, exasperated at ill treatment received from 

98 



Mississippi Valley. 

the whites — and out of them made sober, earnest, 
stump-grubbing farmers. 

There is even a practical side to this idle fancy. 
By adopting the Quaker and Moravian ideas, all the 
merciless slaughter, and, (here we are practical), the 
greater part of the infinite waste and expense of the 
Indian wars, would have been saved. We hope that 
this practical consideration may excuse the mention 
of such a sentimental proceeding as the application of 
Christian principals to a business transaction. 

Sad to relate the white man did nothing like this. 
On the contrary the two white peoples who came to 
America in the Seventeenth Century utterly checked 
and turned back the Indian's natural current of evolu- 
tion. 

In proof of this assertion consider the effect of the 
rum — how the squaws with trembling limbs hastened 
to hide all weapons when the trader arrived. Con- 
sider the smallpox and other diseases which the whites 
introduced among the red men. 

Consider the effect of what is called the innocent 
trade that the whites established. The whites offered 
a variety of goods that were always tempting, and in 
some cases very useful to the Indians. But the whites 
wanted furs only in exchange and in order to get the 
goods offered for furs, the Indians abandoned all other 
pursuits to go hunting. The Indian had been "fast 
progressing from the hunter state," but the white de- 
mand for skins stopped that progress and turned him 
back to the slaughter of wild beasts. From 1610 until 
long after the end of the Eighteenth Century the whites 
assiduously cultivated the fur trade, and then won- 

99 



LofO, 



A History of the 

dered why it was the Indians preferred the hunter's 
life to that of a stump-grubbing farmer! They made 
liquor the chief article of exchange, and yet the whites 
— even the historians — were disgusted because the In- 
dian became a drunken beggar. 

Consider the effect of the guns which were sold 
to some tribes and not to others. Says the Jesuit Re- 
lation for 1659-60: 

"The Dutch took possession of these regions and 
conceived a fondness for the beaver * * * and in 
order to secure them in greater number they furnished 
those people with firearms, with which it was easy to 
conquer; * * * ^7 has also put into their heads that 
idea of sovereign szvay to zvhich they aspire, mere bar- 
barians although they are, with an ambition so lofty." 

But the posession of arms and the greed of domin- 
ion were only the beginning of the cultivation of the 
red man's ferocity. In the journal of Father Le 
Moyne, written while on a mission to the Onondagas, 
in 1654, he describes at length a speech which he made 
to the Indians on August 10. This journal can be 
found in the Jesuit Relation for 1653-54, Thwaite's 
edition, p. iii. 

*T opened the proceedings with public prayers," 
says the Father and when that was ended, "I told 
them that in my speech, I had nineteen words to lay be- 
fore them." That is, he had nineteen propositions and 
statements to make, each of which was emphasized by 
a present. Of the first seven of these, nothing need 
be said here, but to quote the words of the father, "the 
purpose of the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh pres- 
ents was to give each of these Iroquois Nations a 

100 



Mississippi Valley. 

hatchet to be used in the new war in which they were 
engaged with the Cat Nation." 

A white missionary sicked on the Iroquois dogs to 
devour the unfortunate Eries. And the Abbe Piquet 
was the most active and the most influential man in 
Canada in instigating those bootless raids made by the 
converted Abenakas and Mohawks on the helpless set- 
tlers of New England previous to 1750. 

Even that does not tell all the story. Read the 
following from Winsor's "Mississippi Basin," (pp. 
242-243) : 

"The several governments of the English Colonies," writes 
Colonel Stoddard at this time (1747) to Governor Shirley, "had 
for three years been persuading the Iroquois 'into a war wherein 
they had not any concern but to serve their friends, and they 
have left their hunting and other means of living and exposed 
themselves and families for our sakcs, only to be left in the 
lurch.' * * * This failure of the English to support the 
Indians in wars which the savages undertook for the defence of 
the Colonies was nothing new." 

This is a most important matter in any considera- 
tion of the character of the red Americans. Before 
the white men came "battle for plunder, tribute and 
conquest was almost unknown," says Powell, the best 
authority on the history of the red race. But from the 
time the whites came until the French rule in America 
was ended, the most conspicuous feature of the history 
of the white dealings with the Indians is found iii the 
oft-repeated offers of reivards for scalps. The whites 
steadily incited the Indians to fight, and buying scalps 
did not cease until the last remnant of European power 
was swept from the Mississippi valley. 

One reads much about the wickedness of robbing 

lOI 



A History of the 

the Indian of his hunting grounds — as if that were the 
great wrong done him. It is all nonsense. The one 
injury done him that is worth remembering — the in- 
jury that was deadly to the white race as well as to the 
red — was in persuading him to abandon his self-ac- 
quired opportunity to develop himself, and go hunting 
for skins and for scalps. 

The hunting grounds of the Indians should have 
been taken from him to the last acre. The writers 
who have bewailed his loss of hunting grounds do but 
show how much they, not the Indians, are to be pitied. 
And it is chiefly because the white race is still blind to 
the real wrong done the red that this wretched story 
is worth some consideration here. It is never in vain 
to remember that the whites, while boasting of their 
Christian religion, sowed saltpetre and sulphur, and 
were inexorably obliged to reap hell-fire. 

It is a most pathetic story — a story of children ta- 
ken from peaceable play and set to the bloody work of 
butchers. And when New Orleans had been settled 
the time was at hand when the English and the French 
would grasp each other in mortal combat to determine 
which should have sole opportunity of robbing the un- 
fortunates — with such results as we shall see. 



102 




JOHN LAW. 
Projector of the Mississippi Sclieme. 




VI 



WORK OF THE FRENCH IN THE VALLEY. 



Law's Mississippi Company and Law Himself Did Some- 
thing — Bienville's Way of "Booming" a Town 
Site — Character of the French-Americans Described 
by a Candid Priest — Indians Burned Alive by the 
French at New Orleans — A Southern Gentleman's 
Opinion of Such Deeds — Reasons for the French 
Failure as Colonists Plainly Stated by French Priests 
and Soldiers. 

Stories of the work of the French in the Mississip- 
pi Valley, after the founding of New Orleans in 1718, 
are by no means uninteresting, nor are they without 
significance. John Law's company began work very 
earnestly. In June, after the founding of New Or- 
leans, three ships brought out "colonists, convicts and 
troops, in all 800 souls." Of the colonists, 148 were 

103 



A History of the 

sent up to Natchitoches, on the Red River; 82 were sent 
to the Yazoo, and 68 remained in New Orleans. There 
were, it is seen, only 298 colonists among the "800 
souls," and Bienville wrote that very few carpenters 
and plowmen were to be found among the colonists. 
The number of convicts is not stated, but the fact of 
their presence is significant. 

In October, 17 19, 200 Germans came to settle on 
a tract of land, twelve miles square, that belonged to 
Law. Others followed. It was in making a settle- 
ment of Germans that Law left a permanent impres- 
sion on the Mississippi Valley. For these Germans 
could and would work. When Law, after having 
flooded France with 3,000,000,000 livres of paper mon- 
ey, fled for life with only 800 livres in coin, the Ger- 
mans were evicted from the land he had owned. But 
other land was given them on the river. There they 
thrived by good work, and to this day the settlement 
is known as the German coast. 

Besides the Germans the only valuable accessions 
to the population in 17 19 were 500 negro slaves — the 
first importation of any size. This is not to commend 
slavery, but to point out the fact that in such a coun- 
try as Louisiana was then, any workers were better 
than idlers. Hard manual labor had to be done in un- 
healthy localities, and the slaves did it then, and they 
were found equally serviceable in later years, even 
though slavery was a curse to the whites in the long 
run. 

In 1 72 1 Bienville sent surveyors to lay out "a suit- 
able site for a city worthy to become the capital of 
Louisiana," and Louisiana in those days included the 

104 



Mississippi Valley. 




A Portion of Labat's Map, 1722. 



10: 



A History of the 

whole Mississippi valley except some of the extreme 
upper part which was governed from Canada. He 
wished to remove the seat of government from Mobile 
to the new city, but, partly from a love of opposing the 
Governor, his associates refused to do so. What Bien- 
ville did at New Orleans, then, is worth remembering. 
By his orders streets were cut through the brush, and 
were ditched ; palisades were erected around the town ; 
a levee was made (the first attempt to confine the Mis- 
sissippi to its channel), and warehouses were built to 
accommodate trade. By practical, permanent improve- 
ments, Bienville brought all the traders of Mobile to 
the new town site, and the Government officials were 
obliged to follow to the new center of population. 

In 1724, a company of Jesuits came bringing or- 
ange trees, fig trees, and indigo plants. They also gave 
attention to the native myrtle bush that produced a 
valuable wax. On April 11, 1726, Bienville gave them 
a tract of land, 3,600 feet front on the river and 9,000 
feet deep, where now is found the heart of the city, 
together with enough slaves to work the tract; and 
here they made a plantation that was in its day a sort 
of agricultural experiment station and therefore valu- 
able. 

In 1727, a company of Ursuline nuns came to 
open a school for girls — the first of the kind in the val- 
ley — and to attend to the sick in the hospital that was 
built soon after the settlement was made. A letter 
written by sister Hochard, of this company, soon after 
her arrival, contains the following description of life 
as she saw it in times of plenty among the official and 
wealthy class in the young city. 

106 



M ississipp i Valley . 

"Although I do not as yet know perfectly the province called 
Louisiana, still I will attempt, dear father, to give you some 
details about it. I assure you that I can hardly realize that I 
am on the banks of the Mississippi, because there is here, in cer- 
tain things, as much magniUcance as in France, and as much 
politeness and refinement. Gold and velvet stuffs are commonly 
used, although they cost three times as much as in Rouen. Corn- 
bread costs ten cents a pound, eggs from forty-five to fifty 
cents a dozen, milk fifteen cents for a measure that is half 
that of France. We have pine apples — the most excellent of all 
fruit — peas and wild beans, watermelons, potatoes, sabotines — 
which are very much like our gray renette apples — an abund- 
ance of figs and pecans, walnut and hickory nuts, which, when 
eaten too green, act as astringents on the throat. There are 
also pumpkins. I do not speak of many other kinds of fruit of 
which I have heard, but with which I am still unacquainted. 

"As to meat, we live on wild beef, venison, wild geese and 
turkey and a sort of swan, hares, chickens, ducks, teals, 
pheasants, partridges, quails, and other game. The river abounds 
in monstrously large fishes, among which the sheepshead must 
be mentioned as excellent; and we have also rays, carps, and an 
infinite number of other fishes unknown in France. A great 
use is made of chocolate and coffee with milk. We eat bread 
made of half rice and half wheat flour. We have wild grapes 
larger than those of France. They do not grow in bunches, 
but are put on the table in plates in the fashion that prunes are 
served. 

"The dish most in favor is rice boiled in milk, and what is 
called sagamitc, which consists of Indian corn pounded in a 
mortar and boiled in water with butter or lard. The whole 
people of Louisiana regard as most excellent this kind of food." 
(Translated from the Catholic World by Charles Gayarre. Italics 
not in original.) 

Meantime there was some little growth of popula- 
tion elsewhere in the valley. In 1720, Major Pierre 
Dugue Boisbriant, (he whose wish to marry had been 
thwarted by Bienville), went up the river with 100 
men and at a point sixteen miles above Kaskaskia 
built a fort which he named Chartres. The river chan- 

107 



A History of the 

nel has changed to and fro since then, but Chartres 
Landing still perpetuates the memory of this fort. In 
1721, Kaskaskia became a parish, and in 1722, Bois- 
briant, who ruled as commandant of the region, is- 
sued the first land warrant known to the records of 
what is now the state of Illinois. 

In 1 72 1, a capitalist named Philip Francois Re- 
nault brought 200 miners and 500 slaves to the point 
where Galena now stands, and opened the lead mines 
found there. In this year, also, the Jesuits established 
a college and monastery at Kaskaskia, and "Fort Char- 
tres became not only the headquarters of the comman- 
dant in Upper Louisiana, but the center of life and 
fashion in the West," as Monette says. 

The details of this "life and fashion," (as he got 
them from Alartin, Flint and Stoddard), are given by 
Monette, who, it should be said, is a most sympathetic 
recorder of the annals of the French in Louisiana. For 
the sake of comparison with a frontier manner of life 
to be described in another chapter the following is 
worth reading: 

"The early French on the Illinois were remarkable 
for their easy amalgamation in manners and customs 
and blood" with the red men. "Their villages sprang 
up in long narrow streets," with each family home- 
stead so contiguous that the merry and social villagers 
could carry on their voluble conversation "each from 
his own balcony." 

"Each homestead was surrounded by its own sepa- 
rate enclosure of a rude picket fence. The houses were 
generally one story high, surrounded by sheds (veran- 
das) or galleries; the walls were constructed of a rude 

108 



Mississippi Valley. 

framework, having upright corner posts and studs, 
connected horizontally by numerous cross ties, not 
unlike the rounds of a ladder. These [cross ties] 
served to hold the 'cat [strav^ or moss] and clay' of 
which the walls were made and rudely plastered by 
hand. 

"The chimney was made of similar materials, and 
was formed by four long corner posts, converging at 
the top to about one-half, or less than the space below." 

A large field nearby was fenced for the common 
use of the villagers. "The season for plowing, plant- 
ing, reaping and other agricultural operations in the 
'common field' was regulated by special enactments, 
or by public ordinance, and to take place simultaneous- 
ly in each village. Even the form and manner of door 
yards, gardens and stable yards were regulated by 
special enactment." 

"The winter dress of the men was generally a 
coarse blanket capote drawn over shirt and long vest," 
which served both as cloak and hat, "for the hood, 
attached to the collar behind, hung upon the back and 
shoulders as a cape, and, when desired, it served to 
cover the whole head from intense cold. In summer, 
especially among the couriers de hois, the head was 
enveloped in a blue handkerchief, turban like." 

A handkerchief of "fancy colors, wreathed with 
bright colored ribbons, and sometimes flowers, formed 
the head dress of females on festive occasions." "The 
old fashioned short jacket and petticoat, varied to suit 
the diversities of taste, was the most common over 
dress of the women. The feet in winter were pro- 
tected by Indian moccasins, or the clog shoes; in 

109 



A History of the 

summer they were all barefooted, except on festive 
occasions," when they wore "light moccasins, gor- 
geously ornamented with brilliants of porcupine quills, 
shells, beads, lace, ingeniously wrought" over the 
whole above the sole. 

The traders kept a heterogenous stock of goods 
in their largest rooms, where the assortment was fully 
displayed to the gaze of the purchasers. "The young 
men who wished to see the world sought occupation 
as voyageurs and their return was greeted with smiling 
faces, and signalized by balls and dances at which the 
whole village assembled." 

"The commandants were invested with despotic 
authority." "Learning and science were terms beyond 
their comprehension." "The priest was their oracle 
in matters of learning as well as in the forms and ob- 
servances of religion." "On politics and the affairs 
of the nation they never suffered their minds to feel 
a moment's anxiety." "Day after day passed by in 
contentment and peaceful indolence." (Italics not in 
the original.) 

And yet, being agriculturists, they did raise food 
for export. In 1745 the Illinois country sent 400,000 
pounds of grain to New Orleans, the French popu- 
lation being then not far from 900 souls, all told. 

Other villages near Chartres were Prairie du 
Rocher, with twelve dwelling houses in 1770, and St. 
Phillippe with sixteen dwellings. Cahokia (called 
Kaoquias by the French), was at this date a long 
straggling village of forty-five dwellings and a church. 

A trading post was established at or near the site 
of New Madrid as early as 1740 (according to tra- 

IIO 



Mississippi Volley. 

dition). The region was notable for its number of 
bears, and the "principal occupation" of the inhabi- 
tants "was the chase of that animal, and the prepara- 
tion and sale of bears' oil." Hence the voyageurs 
named it "L'Anse de la Graisse" — Grease Bay. 

St. Genevieve was not established in Missouri until 
about 1755. 

Following the Illinois settlements came the occu- 
pation of the Wabash country. The Fox Indians 
living around the Wisconsin River proved implacable 
enemies to the French, in the Eighteenth century. 
Neither blandishments, nor attacks that drove them 
temporarily from their homes, could bring these In- 
dians to the French interests, and the portages at the 
Fox River and the Chicago River, and the St. Joseph- 
Kankakee portage became, in spite of fortified posts, so 
dangerous that the voyageurs from the St. Lawrence 
began, as early as 1705, to use the portage from the 
Maumee to the Wabash. 

This portage had been avoided in the Seventeenth 
century because of fear of the Iroquois. The route led 
up the Maumee to the St. Mary's branch, the present site 
of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. A portage of three leagues 
brought the coureurs de hois to a branch of the Wa- 
bash. According to Father Marest, a stockade was 
built on the upper Wabash previous to 17 12, but it 
appears that the route was not popular previous to 
1 716. The post on the upper Wabash was called 
Ouiatanon. Lafayette, Ind., stands on the site of 
Ouiatanon. It stood at the mouth of Little River. In 
1705 some enterprising coureurs de hois collected 
15,000 skins on the Wabash and took them to Mobile, 

III 



A History of the 

where they were received joyously, because it was the 
first arrival from the Wabash. 

The fortified trading post of Vincennes was estab- 
lished where Vincennes, Indiana, now stands, by Mon- 
sieur Vincennes in 1722. But Vincennes did not be- 
come a settlement, properly so called, until 1734 or 
1735, when a number of families made homes there. 

Father du Poisson, describing what he saw in a 
journey made from New Orleans to the Arkansas, 
beginning May 25, 1727, says (Jesuit Relations, vol. 
Ixvii) : 

"A tract of land granted by the company of the 
Indies to a private individual, for the purpose of clear- 
ing that land and making it valuable, is called a con- 
cession. * * * Yhe concessionaries are, therefore, 
the gentlemen of the country. The greater part of 
them are not people who would leave France, but they 
equipped vessels and filled them with superintendents, 
stewards, storekeepers, clerks, and workmen of various 
trades, with provisions and all kinds of goods. They 
[these workmen], had to plunge into the woods to set 
up cabins, to choose their ground, and burn the cane 
brakes and trees. This beginning seemed very hard 
to people not at all accustomed to that kind of labor; 
the superintendents and their subordinates, for the 
most part, amused themselves in places where a few 
Frenchmen had already settled, and there they con- 
sumed their provisions. The work had hardly begun 
when the concession was ruined ; the workmen, ill-paid 
or ill-fed, refused to work, or himself took his pay; 
the warehouses were pillaged. Do you not recognize 
in this the Frciichinanf" 

112 



Mississippi Valley. 

"There are also people who have no other occu- 
pation than that of roving about : ist. The women or 
girls taken from the hospitals of Paris, or from the 
Salpetriere, or other places of equally good repute, 
who find that the laws of marriage are severe, and the 
management of a house too irksome. A voyage of 
400 leagues does not terrify these heroines; I already 
know of two of them whose adventures would furnish 
materials for a romance. 2nd. The travellers; these 
for the most part are young men sent to the Missis- 
sippi 'for various reasons' by their relatives, or by the 
law, and who, finding that the land lies too low for 
digging, prefer to hire themselves to row and ply 
from once shore to another. 3rd. The hunters," who 
supplied New Orleans with dried buffalo meat, skins 
and bears' oil, a class of men not reprobated by the 
father, though most of the writers speak harshly of 
these wood rangers. 

In the course of forty years after Iberville came to 
Louisiana, the French, by an unhurried progression 
over easy water routes, made settlements at Natchez ; 
at Natchitoches, on the Red River; on the Mississippi, 
near the Arkansas ; on the Yazoo ; in the region around 
Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres (five villages there) ; on 
the Illinois River above Lake Peoria; at Vincennes, 
and near the Wabash-Maumee portage. 

In all these years they suffered but one serious 
attack from the Indians, though many small ones were 
endured. On November 29 (one account says 28), 
1729, the Natchez arose and wiped out the French in- 
habitants and garrison at the village of Rosalie that 
stood where Natchez now stands. Five men escaped, 

113 



K History of the 

and two, a tailor and a wagon maker, with the attrac- 
tive women, and the children were kept ahve. 

Aided by the Choctaws, the French took ample 
revenge, and Governor Perier wrote on August i, 
1730, concerning some of the red prisoners captured: 

"Laterly I have burned here four men and two 
zvomen, and sent the rest to St. Domingo." 

Charles Gayarre, the New Orleans historian, him- 
self a Frenchman, says of this burning. "It was not 
only an act of useless cruelty, but of exceedingly bad 
policy. * * * It must have looked, in the estima- 
tion of the Indians, as an approval of their national 
custom. * * * gut what is remarkable and char- 
acteristic is the cool, business-like indifference, and the 
matter of fact tone with zvhich Governor Perier in- 
forms his government of the auto-da-fe zvhich has 
taken place by his orders.'* 

These words are worth remembering because they 
show how all Southern gentlemen regard such atro- 
cities. There is a very great difference between the 
Southern gentlemen and the upstarts, (sons of former 
overseers, in many cases), who describe themselves as 
"leading citizens," and are found heading the mobs 
that burn negroes alive. 

On November 15, 1731, Law's Mississippi Com- 
pany took final leave of Louisiana by turning the coun- 
try over to the King. It is a curious fact in French 
history that this company continued to exist long after 
every other scheme planned by Law failed. Being 
freed from the grasp of private monopoly the young 
city was now able to open free commerce with the 
French West Indies and the home country. By the 

114 



Mississippi Valley. 

labor of slaves the colonists were producing indigo, 
rice, tobacco and lumber for export. The tobacco is 
worth special notice because at a point fifty-five miles 
above New Orleans a kind of tobacco is yet produced, 
(400 pounds to the acre, at that), which is famous 
as Louisiana perique. 

And yet when Bienville left Louisiana in 1743, 
the whole province had a population of only 4,000 
French and 2,000 negroes, and but for the supplies 
of food sent down the river from the Illinois, New 
Orleans would have been starved from the face of the 
map. In 1730 Bienville reported that for three months 
the colonists had "subsisted on the seeds of reeds and 
wild grass." The Marquis de Vaudreuil, who suc- 
ceeded Bienville, "notified his home government in 
1744, that if an importation of flour had not arrived 
he could not have controlled his famished garrisoii." 
(Winsor.) 

In a letter by Father Vivier, written from the 
Illinois country, November 17, 1750, he says, "Wheat, 
as a rule yields only from five to eight fold ; but it must 
he observed that the lands are tilled in a very careless 
manner, and that they have never been manured dur- 
ing the thirty years while they have been cultivated." 

Father Gravier describes one method of curing the 
sick which he practiced, (Jesuit Relations, vol. Ixv, 
p. 109) : 

"A small piece of Father Francois Regis's hat, 
which one of our servants gave me, is the most in- 
fallible remedy that I know of for curing all kinds of 
fever." 

Said Bienville in a letter written on April 15, 1735 : 
115 



A History of the 

"I neglect nothing to turn the attention of the in- 
habitants to agricultural pursuits, but in general they 
are worthless, lazy, dissolute." And of a company of 
soldiers that had arrived a short time before writing 
another letter, he said : 

''^There are but one or two men among them whose 
size is above five feet ; as to the rest, they are under four 
feet ten inches. With regard to their moral character 
it is sufficient to state that out of fifty-two, who have 
lately been sent here, more than one-half have already 
been whipped for larceny." 

During the summer of 1754, some soldiers of a 
garrison kept on Cat Island, when exasperated beyond 
endurance by the cruelty of their commander, killed 
him, and started through the woods toward South 
Carolina, but were all captured by Indians sent after 
them. One killed himself. Two were broken upon the 
wheel, and one, who was a Swiss from the regiment 
of Karrer, was placed alive in a wooden coffin, and by 
two sergeants sawed in two with a whip saw. 

Father Etienne de Carheil in a letter regarding the 
work of missionaries at French forts in the interior, 
(Jesuit Relations, vol. Ixv) says: "These [missions] 
are reduced to such an extremity that we can no longer 
maintain them against an infinite multitude of evil 
acts — acts of brutality and violence; of injustice and 
impiety; of lewd and shameless conduct." 

As a final view of those Frenchmen who were osten- 
sibly striving to make a great colony of the Missis- 
sippi valley, take this from the "Present State of the 
Country and Inhabitants, Europeans and Indians, of 
Louisiana," by "An Officer of New Orleans to his 

116 



Mississippi Valley. 

Friend at Paris," as translated and printed in London 
in 1744, (page 11 etseq). 

"Every one studies his own Profit; the Poor labour 
for a Week and squander in one day all they have 
earned in six ; from thence arises the profit of the Pub- 
lic Houses, which flourish every day. The Rich spend 
their time in seeing their slaves work to improve their 
land and get money which they spend in Plays, Balls 
and Feasts; but the most common pastime of the 
highest as well as the lowest, and even of the slaves, 
is Women ; so that if there are 500 women, married 
or unmarried in New Orleans, including all ranks, I 
don't believe, without exaggeration, that there are ten 
of them of a blameless character; as for me I know 
but two of those, and even they are privately talked 
of. What I say of New Orleans I say of the whole 
province without being guilty of Slander or Calumny." 

"Laws are observed here much in the same man- 
ner as in France, or worse. The rich man knows how 
to procure himself Justice of the Poor, if the affair is to 
his advantage; but if the poor man is in the right he is 
obliged to enter into a composition; if the rich is in 
the wrong the affair is stifled. They deal fairly with 
such as are very sharp sighted. As the King is 
at a great distance they make him provide Victuals, 
Arms and Clothing for troops, which those who keep 
the offices or magazines sell and put the money in their 
own pockets; the poor soldier for whom they were 
designed never so much as seeing them." 

With patient persistence and unsurpassed endurance 
the austere La Salle staked the trail from Montreal 
to the mouth of the ^Mississippi. Iberville, a hero of 

117 



A History of the 

the French Navy, came to possess the land. The 
populations that followed were composed of convicts, 
male and female; soldiers "under four feet ten inches" 
in body, mind and morals; colonists whose highest 
ambition was to find a gold mine, and whose pastime 
among the "highest as well as the lowest, and even of 
Slaves, is women." 

The Goths and Vandals who swarmed through the 
gates of degenerate Rome "did not come a day too 
soon." The swelling tide from the British colonies 
that was already trickling through the passes, and wash- 
ing around the ends of the Alleghany range, had some- 
thing in it as harsh and bitter as the brine of the sea, 
but it was to descend on the valley of the great river 
with the cleansing power of the flood of Noah. 




ii8 




PHILIP, ALIAS MF.TACOMK.I'. 
From the original engraving by Paul Revere. 




VII 



THE FRENCH EXPELLED FROM THE VALLEY. 
PART L 

This is to Tell How the Corruption of the French Court 
Spread Until it Blighted French Trade Among the 
American Indians and How the French Resorted to 
Inhuman Warfare to Retain Their Trade — Celoron's 
Expedition — The Remarkable Attitude of the British 
Colonists After Celoron's Warning — Work of the 
British Traders Brings Another French Irruption — 
First Gun in the War that Ended on the Plains of 
Abraham. 

The war that destroyed the French power in the 
Mississippi Valley began, strictly speaking, in an at- 
tack on Indians, (friendly to the British), who lived 
on the banks of the Scioto river in the present state 
of Ohio; it ended, so far as America was concerned, 

119 



A History of the 

when Wolfe scaled the Heights of Abraham at Que- 
bec. But this war was, after all is said, only an 
outbreak of a chronic state of conflict that had grown 
out of the earliest efforts of the British to extend 
their "peaceful commerce" in beaver skins. 

To understand the conditions under which the 
British colonists drove the French from the Mississippi 
Valley it is necessary to consider briefly this chronic 
state of conflict growing out of the competition for 
furs — especially to consider what the French did in 
that conflict and their avowed object in fighting. 

As has been noted already, the British were in no 
degree as venturesome as the French in the fur trade, 
but the British trade, especially at Albany, grew in 
spite of the greater enterprise of the French traders. 
In fact a time came when coiircitrs-de-hois carried 
packs of furs down the Mohawk instead of down the 
St. Lawrence. 

The reason for this growth of trade is readily 
found. The British undersold the French merchants. 
As one French merchant said in a letter yet preserved, 
the Albany traders gave a silver bracelet for two beaver 
skins where the French trader would have charged 
ten. 

This difference in price is accounted for by the 
enormous burden of taxes which the French King 
laid upon his people, and by the utter dishonesty of 
the French officials in America, The practices of the 
French court, so graphically described by Carlyle, nec- 
essarily spread through all the French domains. "Mon- 
sieur the Count de Maurepas [the "lightly gyrating" 
Prime Minister] is right when he says that the officials 

1 20 



Mississippi Valley. 

in Canada are looking not for the Western sea but 
for the sea of beaver," wrote Father Nau, on October 

2, 1735- 

To preserve their fur trade in spite of prices that 
amounted in a moral point of view to sheer robbery, 
the French resorted to inhuman warfare. They set 
the Indians raiding the New England settlements. 
Said Charlevoix regarding one of these raids: 

"Monsieur de Vaudreuil formed a party of these 
savages to whom he joined some Frenchmen under 
the direction of the Sieur de Beaubassin, when they 
effected some ravages of no great consequence; they 
killed, however, about 300 men." To this he adds 
the very significant remark : "The essential point was 
to commit the Abenakis in such a manner that they 
could not drazv back." "'n 

The Abenakis, and the Iroquois converts known 
as the Caughnawagas, (in the Eighteenth Century 
French diplomacy had fully established priests in the 
Iroquois villages), were sneaking away from the 
shadow of the altar to buy goods at Albany; and the 
French persuaded them to raid the British settlements 
in New England on the theory that no raider would 
dare to go to a British town to trade. Every New 
England settlement within reach was raided by order 
of the French, and French officers went along to see 
that the raiding was thoroughly done. Women were 
slaughtered, parents saw the brains of their babes 
dashed out against rock or tree, prisoners were tor- 
tured in ways so shocking that a detailed description 
cannot now be printed; and all this was done "to 
commit the Indians in such fashion that they would 

121 



A History of the 

continue to buy French goods at prices rendered ex- 
cessive by the bald steaHng of which French officials 
were guilty." 

It was New England alone that suffered from the 
early raids for the preservation of the French trade. 
The Caughnawaga Iroquois, (located on the St. Law- 
rence), could not be trusted to raid toward Albany, 
because their relatives lived in the Mohawk valley; and 
the Abenaki s could not be sent there alone because that 
would rouse the resentment of all the Iroquois. 

In consequence of this freedom from raids. New 
York's population spread slowly up the Mohawk. 
The Lutheran Palatines, fleeing from religious perse- 
cution in Europe, came nearly 3,000 strong, to New 
York, and were sent by the wily authorities to settle 
west of Schenectady, because they would serve as a buf- 
fer in case of French-Indian invasion over the route 
lying west of the Adirondacks. Their plantations were 
extended as far as where Rome now stands. Some of 
them went also to the frontier of Pennsylvania and 
Virginia. 

In 1727 Governor Burnet, of New York, built at 
his own expense "a stone house of strength," where 
Oswego now stands, in order to fend off the French. 
Here a lively trade was established. 

The French fumed over the advancing settlements 
of Englishmen, but instep.d of attacking this "house of 
strength," they built a trading station where Toronto 
now stands. 

Meantime, (1726), Joncaire, a Frenchman living 
among the Iroquois, had re-established on Niagara 
River the post La Salle had built, while in 1731 Fort 

122 



Mississippi Valley. 

Frederick was built at Crown Point, on Lake Cham- 
plain. Both patriotism and private greed urged the 
French to establish new posts; for by so doing they 
hoped to wall in the British, and they knew by expe- 
rience that every post was a source of wealth to its 
officers. 

During all the early years of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury, while British settlers and stations spread west- 
ward through New York, the British traders of Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia and the Colonies to the South, had 
been working across and around the Alleghanies, while 
their stations were eventually established in the moun- 
tain passes, and beyond them. Col. Thomas Cresap, 
whom Winsor calls "a vagrant Yorkshire man, then 
near forty years old," built, in the winter of 1742-43, 
a hunting and trading cabin near the upper fork of 
the Potomac in the extreme west part of what is now 
Maryland. In 1745 a British trading post was estab- 
lished on Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie, near the site of 
the present city of Sandusky, Ohio, and as many as 
300 traders are said to have gone to the Ohio country 
every season thereafter, for several years. If anyone 
wishes a more detailed story of this growth of colonial 
trade it can be found in Walton's "Conrad Weiser." 

In 1748, the Ohio company was organized in Vir- 
ginia for trade and colonization in the Ohio Valley. 
They applied to the King for a grant of 500,000 acres 
in that valley, (which Virginia claimed), and they 
received, by the royal order of May 19, 1749, 200,000, 
on condition that they settle 100 families on the tract, 
each year, for seven years, and build a fort to protect 
them. This done they were to receive an additional 

123 



A History of the 

300,000 acres. This company did a little memorable 
work. They contracted with Col. Thomas Cresap "to 
lay out and mark a road" from Will's Creek, (now 
Cumberland, Md.), to the forks of the Ohio. Cresap, 
with the aid of an Indian named Nemacolin, marked 
the trees along an old trail that had been occasionally 
used by the Indians, and created a path fit for sure- 
footed pack horses. It lay not far from the route of 
the old National Road, as now found there. 

In 1736, Col. William Mayo from a head spring of 
the Potomac passed over to the head of a tributary of 
the Monongahela with a party of surveyors. In 1748,. 
Dr. Thomas Walker, "a genuine explorer and surveyor, 
a man of mark," reached the Cumberland River, and 
in 1750, passed through and named the Cumberland 
Gap, after the Duke of Cumberland. 

The British population that was crowding west- 
ward toward the Great Lakes and swelling to the crests 
of the Alleghanies, occupied a territory of 514,416 
square miles, (Census Report of 1850), and numbered 
1,160,000. The French who were to try to stop the 
westward movement of the British, numbered no more 
than 80,000, and they claimed in addition to all Canada, 
the entire Mississippi Valley with its area of 1,217,562 
square miles. If the French were to hold their claims 
to the Mississippi Valley, they needed to bestir them- 
selves — and that they did. 

But before telling what they did to rivet their 
claims to the Great Basin, it seems worth while to con- 
sider whether the British ought to have respected the 
claim of the French. 

The French claim was based on the work of La 
124 



Mississippi Valley. 

Salle in discovering the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and in building forts within the watershed of the Great 
River. Under the law and practice of nations, this 
certainly gave them what is now called the right of pre- 
emption to the whole basin. They had the right to 
establish a great French colony there. But when that 
much is conceded, the fact remains that the French 
nation had failed to do anything in furtherance of 
this right — they had failed to colonize the region. 
The widely scattered posts that had been established 
could no more be called lasting or sufficient "improve- 
ments on the claim," than the planting of an apple 
seed would have been, in recent years, sufficient to give 
an American settler a right to a quarter section of land 
in Kansas as a timber claim. The Mississippi Valley, 
with its capacity to support 200,000,000 people, in the 
middle of the i8th century contained less than 7,000 
Frenchmen, including slaves; and more than half of 
these were concentrated around New Orleans. The 
whole region was an unscarred wilderness. 

Although there were no statutes or treaties that 
covered the condition of affairs in the Mississippi Val- 
ley, the French law governing individual settlers at the 
posts is a strong point to urge against the French claim 
to the whole valley. To any French settler of good 
standing in the church the King would concede a 
reasonable tract of land on condition that he improve 
it within seven years. If within seven years he failed 
to improve the claim to the satisfaction of the com- 
mandant of the post, the land could be taken by another. 
The Mississippi Valley, in the middle of the Eighteenth 
Century, was by the French standard, wild land, be- 

125 



A History of the 

cause they had not made the proper improvements; 
and it was therefore open to the claims of whomso- 
ever would improve it. 

To look at the matter in another point of view, the 
French were trying to take the wild region for a vast 
game preserve, wherein to gather furs, while the Brit- 
ish were trying to get it for home sites. The quarrel 
was somwhat like that between actual settlers and cat- 
tlemen on the wild land west of the Mississippi after 
our Civil war. Exact justice always gave the actual 
settler his claim wherever he chose to stake it. 

But laying aside all such arguments as these (al- 
though an international court would consider them), 
there is one more point to be made for the British, and 
it is one that is decisive. The argument is as follows : 

For more than fifty years the French, in order to 
preserve their trade with the Indians, had deliberately 
waged an inhuman warfare on the British settlements 
that were within convenient reach of the French posts. 
In due time they determined to monopolize the trade 
of the Mississippi Valley, as they had tried to monopo- 
lize that of the St. Lawrence. To do that they began 
attacking the British traders found west of the Alle- 
ghanies, and then they established forts in that region. 
The British colonists were fully justified in believing 
that raiders would be sent from the French posts west 
of the Alleghanies as they had been sent from the posts 
on the St. Lawrence. 

It is especially important to note that the raids 
against New England were not made to preserve Can- 
ada from invasion ; the British colonies had no thought 
of pushing settlements to the Canada line at any time 

126 



Mississippi Valley. 

before or during these raids. The raids were made 
solely to protect a trade that in a moral point of view 
was robbery; and they were made at times when the 
French and British kings were nominally at peace. 
Therefore to drive the French from the region west of 
the Alleghenies was an act of self defence. Let it be 
repeated for the sake of emphasis, that during fifty 
years the French had relentlessly pushed their inhuman 
warfare, and the British were then justified in sweep- 
ing such neighbors from the continent. 

With his sympathies excited by the magnificent 
achievements of La Salle, and his prejudices aroused 
against the British for the arrogance and oppression 
with which they treated the United States, more than 
one American writer has said the Mississippi Valley 
was rightfully the property of the French, and that 
predatory aggression took it from them. But it is not 
so. For, even though it be allowed that the Great 
Basin was rightfully French land, it was not predatory 
aggression that took it. It was an aggression in self 
defence. 

In fact, as shall appear, the French shifted the war 
from New England to a point back of the Alleghanies. 
They made an attack on British traders who were in 
the Ohio country, where they had a right to be under 
the treaty last made by the two nations (Utrecht). It 
shall further appear that when the British colonies ex- 
pressed a fear that if French posts were established 
west of the Alleghanies, the raiding that had been done 
in New England would be continued in Pennsylvania 
and Virginia, the fear was fully justified. The truth is 
that in the state of civilization then prevailing the con- 

127 



A History of tJie 

tinent was not large enough to hold the two peoples, 
and a war that would expel or subjugate one of them 
was unavoidable. 

In a larger view this war was but an incident in a 
prolonged conflict between rival races which is yet 
waged, though at present not with guns. 

The first French move into the Alleghany region 
was made in 1749. On June 15 Monsieur Celoron de 
Bienville (commonly called Celoron only), left La 
Chine with a party that included fourteen officers, 
twenty regular soldiers, 180 Canadians, a band of In- 
dians, and a priest, all in twenty-three canoes. Going 
to the mouth of the creek that empties into Lake Erie, 
near Westfield, N. Y., they passed over to Lake Chau- 
tauqua, and thence to the Alleghany river, which they 
reached on July 29. There Celoron began the particu- 
lar work of his mission. Drawing his forces up in lines 
he buried a plate of lead in the south bank, and further 
down the stream he attached the royal coat of arms 
(painted on tin), to a tree. After that was done a 
notary public, brought for the purpose, made a formal 
written statement of what had been done. 

The lead plate was inscribed as follows (transla- 
tion by Parkman) : 

Year 1749, in the Reign of Louis Fifteenth, King of France, 
We, Celoron, commandirig the detachment sent by the Marquise 
de la Galissonniere, commanding general of New France, to 
restore tranquility in certain villages of these cantons, have buried 
this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and the Kanaouagon 
(Conewango), this 29th July, as a token of renewal of posses- 
sion heretofore taken of the aforesaid River Ohio, of all streams 
that fall into it, and all lands on both sides to the source of the 
aforesaid streams, as the preceeding Kings of France have en- 

128 




MAP OF CELORON S EXPEDITION, 1749. 



Mississippi Valley. 

joyed or ought to have enjoyed it, and which they have upheld 
by force of arms and by treaties, notably those of Ryswick, 
Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle. 



LAN 'I^^^Oy :i)V ^.:RECNE ■ DE : LOVIS XV ROIf^, iJ|:^-.S, 
FRANCEA&NOVS-CEuORON ; COMMANDANT DVN -. :J^e;>v;S^;V:-; 
TACHEli^^j/ ENVoiEf ■ ,,PAR M/ONSIEVR ; .LE ■ J^^^h^i^ ,^ tlk^, 
CALisSplriERE ' COMMANDANT. ;':• GENERAL, D.E,if[. ilX;\'i:-f: ::~" • ^-n:^' 

hro<'/Ei&i:i*'-^FRANiii. ^vfovr.: retAblirk la TRXiigLviuifir^ 

pre/'- ;;©£;.::: LA ^Rivi ere ■ -OY'O.;- aUTREMENT BEJt.X;E'-:^^^ 

R-iviERi^i^:;povR'"MONVHENTi\bv:- " renoVvellej^nt . de!^^ 

PCySSSSSJ^ki'HVE ■ NOVSo^AVONS^-PRIS 5: -DE Ca ./ DITT^jfj^ 
RiviERE-?S;6'YO; ET DE foVTES CELLE5 3V:Jt Y .tOM,BWT 
ET :d%'^SrErs , LES te'rres des ...DEiyx CO.TES^jVsav©;*^^^^^ 

A.VX ;5ofRCES . DES DlTTES RIviES:; ^yiNSi |fp%S^ONT ;: 
■bvy; vijVp:- DV . JOVIR LES - PRECEDENTsIifiSfiS ;^,pe ^^ance 
3T 5yiM ■ , SisONT MAINTENVS. JPAR, CEi^;^4=^^E5 :0ET^ 
PAR LES^/yTRAITTE'S ■ SPECIaCEMENT JPA5^v;t_t^X" 



This Shows the Inscription on One of the Two Plates 
Which Have Been Found. 

It was by such idle displays as this that the French 
then expected to stop the onflow of British settlers. 

Celoron was under orders to expel all British tra- 
ders that he might find, but the further they travelled 
down the river, the more threatening became the bear- 
ing of the Indians, who had found British goods better 
as well as cheaper than those supplied by the French. 

On reaching the Scioto the expedition turned north, 
and at the mouth of the Laramie creek had a talk with 
a chief the French called La Demoiselle, though he 
was known to the British traders as "Old Britain," 
because of his friendship for all things British. Old 
Britain accepted the presents offered, but when asked 

129 



A History of the 

to remove his people to their former dwelhng place, 
near a French post on the Maumee River, he said he 
would do so "at a more convenient time." What he 
did do was to increase the population of Pique Town, 
or Pickawillany, as his village was called, and make 
it a stronghold for British traders. This village gave 
its name to the modern town of Piqua, Ohio, which, 
however, stands some distance south of the mouth of 
Laramie creek. 

At the head of the Scioto, Celoron burned his ca- 
noes, and marched overland to the Maumee, whence 
he returned home by way of the lakes. He had accom- 
plished nothing but to give the British warning that the 
French were going to claim everything back of the 
Alleghany mountains. 

In view of this warning, the attitude of the British 
colonists in the three years after 1749 was most re- 
markable. Not only did they ignore the threat of 
French occupation of the lands claimed by Virginia 
and Pennsylvania; they even neglected the Indians on 
those lands, and allowed "the chain of friendship to 
rust; and then to break." 

Several causes united to create this singular atti- 
tude. In Pennsylvania the people and the proprietors 
were quarreling over the expenses incidental to Indian 
affairs. The assembly wished the proprietors to bear 
part of the expense and the proprietors refused. It 
was a question of principle rather than of cash appar- 
ently, for the Quakers, who refused to vote money 
when they thought the proprietors ought to give it, 
were always ready to give liberally, and their time also 
when treaties were to be held with the Indians. 

130 



Mississippi Valley. 

In other colonies, too, the people were too busy 
with a growing struggle they were maintaining against 
the encroachments of their governors, to give adequate 
attention to either the Indians or the French. 

Further than that there were jealousies between the 
colonies, while the French were one people with a 
single head, and a single purpose. There were also 
divisions among the Indians. Time had been when the 
Iroquois nation controlled all the Indians of the Ohio 
region, but in the middle of the Eighteenth Century the 
Delawares were asserting independence once more, and 
there was talk of making an alliance of the tribes in 
the West somewhat similar to the confederation of the 
Six Nations. Even the Iroquois were divided. The 
Onondagas were selling land to Pennsylvania and ig- 
noring the Mohawks altogether in the transaction, 
while the Senecas, the most warlike of the six tribes, 
having a natural liking for the aggressiveness shown 
by the French in those days, were, to a large degree, 
won over to the French interest. 

Nevertheless the British traders kept the grass 
out of the trails leading to the Ohio country. More 
than fifty of them were found gathered at Old Bri- 
tain's, on more than one occasion, and they reached 
out for the trade of the Indians living with the French 
on the Wabash, the Maumee and at Detroit. This 
activity stirred the French to make an advance, in 
spite of the failure of Celoron's expedition. Comman- 
dant Raymond, commanding the post on the Maumee, 
wrote, (quoted by Parkman) : 

"All the tribes who go to the English at Picka- 
willany come back loaded with gifts. I am too weak 

131 



A History of the 

to meet the danger. Instead of twenty men I need 500. 
* * * If the EngHsh stay in this country we are lost. 
We must attack and drive them out." The time for 
something more than an idle display of forms had 
come. 

An attempt to incite the Indians about Detroit to 
go on a raid to Old Britain's town developed the 
fact that they were "touched with disaffection." But 
Charles Langlade, a French trader at Green Bay, came 
down to the Maumee with 250 "Christian Ottawas and 
Ojibwas, and passing through the dense forest, reached 
Old Britain's town at 9 o'clock on the morning of 
June 21, 1752. The stockade gates were immediately 
closed by traders, and a short resistance was made, 
but the Green Bay Indians triumphed. Two traders 
escaped. One who was wounded was murdered after 
the surrender. The Miamis lost fourteen killed and 
among these was Old Britain. And him the "Christ- 
ian" Green Bay Indians boiled and ate, while the 
French looked on without protest, if not with entire 
approval. 

The Marquis Duquesne de Menneville had just 
become governor of Canada when the report of Lang- 
lade's victory reached the St. Lawrence. In spite of 
the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht he asked the min- 
ister to pension Langlade. 

The first gun in the war that ended on the Plains 
of Abraham was fired, with the full approval of the 
French authorities, by Charles Langlade on the banks 
of the Scioto. 



132 




G KO R G E W A H H 1 .N G I'U N . 



This portrait was presented by Wasiiington to his niece in 1757, 

when he was twenty-five years of ag-e. Rraddocl<'s defeat 

was in 1755, and the surrender of Fort Duquesne in 1758. 




VIII 



THE FRENCH EXPELLED FROM THE VALLEY. 
PART IL 

When the French, with Their Silks and Velvets, Came 
to the "Belle Riviere" — Washington's Journey into 
the Wilderness — Virginia's Efforts to Repel the 
French — Washington's First Battle — The Power 
of Madam de Pompadour — The Story of Braddock's 
Expedition — The French King Approved Indian 
Raids on the Home- Makers — It Was in Accordance 
with an Inexorable Law of Nature that the Man 
with an Axe Should Supplant the Vagabond with a 
Sword. 

To follow up the successful work of Langlade on 
the Scioto, Gov. Duquesne, of Canada, determined to 
occupy all the passes of the Alleghanies, and support 
them by building a strong fort at the forks of the Ohio. 
In this plan, contrary to the usual condition of affairs in 

133 



A History of the 

Canada, the Governor was heartily supported by the 
Intendant, Francois Bigot. To estabhsh new posts was 
to give new opportunities for enriching himself to the 
Intendant, and Bigot was an official with whom for- 
gery and perjury, for the concealment of theft, were 
common acts. 

To further show the character of the Canadian of- 
ficials it must be said that Governor Duquesne appoint- 
ed Pierre Paul, Sieur de Marin, (described as a gruff^ 
choleric old man of sixty-three, but full of force and 
capacity), to lead the new expedition to the Allegha- 
nies because of the charms of Madam Marin, who was 
much younger. At the request of Intendant Bigot the 
Chevalier Pean was made second in command, and 
Bigot made the request because Madam Pean was 
young and charming. 

In the fall of 1752, Marin, with 250 men, went to 
the bay where Erie, Pennsylvania, now stands, and 
built a fort of chestnut logs to guard the harbor. A 
road over a newly-discovered portage was then cut to 
where Waterford, Pennsylvania, now stands on French 
creek, a distance of twenty-one miles. Here they built 
a fort and named it Le Boeuf. 

Over this route they carried their baggage consist- 
ing of "velvets, silks and other costly articles sold to 
the king at enormous prices as necessaries of the ex- 
pedition," and then the force sat down for the winter. 

It was not until the next spring, when reinforce- 
ments were sent up the lakes to this new post, that the 
English heard of the new movement. On May 15, 
1753, Capt. Benjamin Stoddart wrote from Oswego 
to Col. Johnson saying : "Yesterday passed here thirty 

134 



Mississippi Valley. 

odd French canoes, part of an army going to Belle 
Riviere, to make good their claim there." He thought 
the whole army numbered 6,000. There were near 
1,500 all told. 

When the reinforcements reached Le Boeuf they 
fortified the trail and spent so much time in useless 
work that they did not reach and fortify the site of 
Venango, (on the way to the forks of the Ohio), until 
August. Meantime sickness had appeared among the 
loitering throng, and so many of them died, (including 
Marin), that the project of going to the forks that year 
was abandoned. 

This irruption of the French pleased the Indians, 
as a whole, in spite of their previous regard for the 
British traders. The British colonial officials had ne- 
glected them. The neglect offended them. The 
French came with a threat of war in one hand and 
many presents as a reward for help in the other, and 
the Indians, having the character of children, grasped 
eagerly at the presents. The old Iroquois chief Half- 
King went to Marin with a protest, but Iroquois, Dela- 
wares and Shawnees helped the French carry their 
goods, (more "velvets, silks and other useless and 
costly articles"), over the portage, and even the Mi- 
amis came with the scalps of two British traders. 
The memory of Old Britain, boiled and eaten, was 
gone. Pottawattamies and Ojibways also came from 
the West as a part of the French force. 

In spite of this ominous condition of affairs but 
one man in the British colonies did anything to avert 
the danger. Governor Robert Dinwiddle, of Virginia, 
wrote a letter of inquiry and protest to the commander 

135 



f A History of the 

V){ the French forces, (for Virginia claimed all the 
Ohio region under her charter), and sent it by the 
Adjutant General of the Virginia militia, George 
Washington, then twenty-one years old, to the French. 
Christopher Gist, who had been prospecting the Ohio 
country in the interests of the Virginia land specula- 
tors called the Ohio Company, went along as guide. 

The story of this journey into the wilderness — 
Washington's first notable public service — is told in 
his journal and has been so often retold that it need 
not be repeated here in detail. At Venango Wash- 
ington was received with every form of civility. He 
noted that at dinner wine was served in abundance, 
and that the French officers, (the notable Joncaire was 
in command), drank enough to loosen their tongues, 

"They told me it was their absolute design to take 
possession of the Ohio, and by G — they would do it," 
writes Washington. They said also that the British 
colonies were too slow in making retaliatory move- 
ments to stop the French. And in this statement the 
French were very nearly but not quite correct. 

Washington went on to headquarters at Le Boeuf, 
and delivered (December ii, 1753), his message. He 
found Legardeur de St. Pierre in command. Le- 
gardeur replied, "I do not think myself obliged to 
obey" your summons to leave the country. 

Nevertheless Washington accomplished the chief 
object of his journey. He learned the French plans, 
and he brought back a statement of the number of 
French in the Ohio water shed, and the number of 
canoes built and building for use in the next forward 
movement. He also noted that in the forks of the 

136 



Mississippi Valley. 

Ohio the land lay well for the site of a fort. He reached 
home in January, 1754. 

In the meantime a letter was received from the 
British King commanding Dinwiddie "to drive them 
(the French) off by force of arms." To obey, how- 
ever, was to prove a hard task. For, first of all, the 
colonists were not greatly interested in the matter. 
Even some Virginians argued that the Great Valley 
really belonged to the French, while others believed 
the anxiety of Dinwiddie to drive off the French was 
due to his interest in the Ohio Company that pur- 
posed settling lands on the Ohio river. In fact in all 
the Colonies the one man in official position who would 
make a definite move to stop the French advance to 
the forks of the Ohio was Governor Dinwiddie. But 
for him the French would have established themselves 
where Pittsburg now stands without any opposition 
other than written words. And once they had been 
thus established who can say when or how they would 
have been routed out? It was fortunate for the fu- 
ture of the Mississippi valley that Dinwiddie "had 
enthusiasm, persistence, and a hatred of the French." 

By thorough, enthusiastic and persistent effort, 
Dinwiddie persuaded his legislature to offer 200,000 
acres of land west of the Alleghanies to any men who 
would fight to perfect the title to it. The legislature 
also voted 10,000 pounds for the purpose of perfect- 
ing that title. Meantime Dinwiddie raised 300 militia 
— "raw recruits." Joshua Fry, "bred at Oxford," was 
made Colonel, Washington was promoted to the rank 
of Lieutenant Colonel, and with half the force was sent 
forward to Will's creek, an upper branch of the Po- 

137 



A History of the 

tomac, (Cumberland, Maryland). William Trent, a 
trader, with a gang of backwoodsmen, was with Wash- 
ington, and when Washington stopped, under orders, 
at Will's creek to build storehouses for a base of sup- 
plies, Trent's men went on to the forks of the Ohio 
and began to erect a fort on the point between the 
rivers. Here the command devolved upon Ensign 
Ward, who began work on the fort on an unnamed 
day, early in April, 1754. 

Dinwiddle had hastened forward this force because 
he believed the French would come down from Ven- 
ango, early that spring, and his belief proved well 
founded, for on April 17, six flat boats, carrying eight- 
een cannon, and 300 canoes, came down the Allegha- 
ny river, bearing 500 Frenchmen under Captain Claude 
Pecaudy de Contrecoeur. 

Ward, having but forty men, and an unfinished 
fort for shelter, was obliged to leave. The French 
then completed the fort, (it was 120x150 feet large), 
and armed it with "six pieces of cannon of six, nine 
of two, and three pound ball." They named the fort 
Duquesne. 

The station that Washington was building on Will's 
creek was 140 miles from Fort Duquesne, by the usual 
trail. At the mouth of Redstone creek, (a branch of 
the Monongahela), a point that was half way between 
Will's creek and Duquesne, the Ohio Company had 
built a stone house. Dinwiddle, on hearing of the 
French arrival at the forks of the Ohio, ordered his 
forces forward to the stone house on Redstone creek, 
and Washington at once began to cut out the Old In- 
dian trail that had been marked by the Ohio Com- 

138 



Mississippi Valley. 

pany, and made a wagon road of it. And this "was 
really the first wagon road into the Great Valley from 
the Atlantic slope." Traces of this old trail can still 
be found though it was abandoned in 1818, when the 
National Road was constructed. 

Late in May, Washington reached a natural open- 
ing in the woods in the valley of the Youghiogany, 
known as the Great Meadows, and there he cleared 
away the brush in front of a small ravine, which he 
turned into a fortification. Meantime, the French had 
sent out thirty-three men under Ensign Coulon de Ju- 
monville, to attack Washington. But, finding his force 
too small, Jumonville hid in a dense wooded ravine to 
await reinforcements. While the French lay hid, 
Washington learned from his old guide, Gist, that the 
party was out, and determined to defend himself by at- 
tacking them. The Iroquois Half-King and others of 
his tribe guided Washington to the ravine on May 28, 
1754. The French were surprised in their camp. They 
jumped to get their guns, and Washington ordered 
his men to fire. Jumonville and nine Frenchmen were 
killed, (which shows the accuracy of the British- 
American aim, even though Half-King did claim that 
his Indians did most of the killing), and twenty-two 
were captured. One Canadian escaped by running. 

The French who for more than fifty years had been 
raiding the back settlements of the British colonies, 
slaughtering women and babies whom they dragged 
from their beds at night — these Frenchmen called, and 
yet call, the killing of Jumonville an assassination 
They wrote the tale in verse, and they screamed it into 
all the courts of Europe. 

139 



A History of the 

Washington returned to his camp at the Great 
Meadows, after the attack on Jumonville, and made 
an entrenchment which he named Fort Necessity. It 
was on a small branch of the Youghiogany, in Fayette 
county, Pa., four miles east of Laurel Hill, and 300 
yards south of the old National Road. Here some re- 
inforcements joined him, and here Washington learned 
that he was in supreme command, ( though but twenty- 
two years old), through the death of Col. Fry. 

On July I, 1754, Washington was attacked by 700 
Frenchmen and an uncounted number of Indians, un- 
der the command of Coulon de Villiers, a brother of 
Coulon de Jumonville. Villiers had come from Canada 
especially to avenge the "assassination" of his brother. 
To defend his fort, Washington had 350 men. 

The French, sheltered by forest trees standing from 
sixty to 100 yards from the fort, opened fire at 11 
o'clock in the morning and for nine hours they worked 
their guns with "zeal and ardor," At the end of that 
time "the detachment was tired and the Indians sent 
me word that they would depart next day," as Villiers 
reported. Moreover, the French ammunition was al- 
most exhausted. The attack had failed. 

But what he could not get by force of arms, Vil- 
liers obtained by finesse. "A cessation of arms was 
proposed to the English," and when the cessation had 
been accepted, Washington sent his Dutch-French in- 
terpreter, Van Braam, to learn what the French would 
propose. 

It was now that French finesse succeeded. The 
French proposed that the English march out with 
colors flying and drums beating, and take a swivel with 

140 



Mississippi Valley. 

them. The French were to have back the prisoners 
taken when Jumonville was killed, and Washington 
was to give two hostages for the fulfillment of this 
condition. 

This proposal Washington accepted, for he was 
in straits for food and ammunition and he signed a 
paper which purported to contain those conditions 
and nothing else. But the finesse of the French had 
gone still further. Taking advantage of the ignorance 
of Van Braam, Capt. Villiers had scrawled the con- 
ditions in a well-nigh illegible hand, and had inser- 
ted therein an acknowledgment that Jumonville had 
been assassinated in the previous fight. This paper was 
wet and badly blotted, as well as badly written. When 
he had written it, Villiers read it over to Van Braam, 
and there is every reason to believe that in so reading 
it, Villiers used the words "death of Jumonville," in- 
stead of "assassination of Jumonville." For Major 
Adam Stephen (second to Washington), in describing 
the paper says: "No person could read them [the words 
of the articles of capitulation], but Van Braam, zvho 
had heard them from the mouth of the French ofUcer." 

This acknowledgment, which was in effect a for- 
gery, was published and screamed throughout all 
Europe, and the French to this day believe the forged 
statement. 

In the face of the dangers which threatened them, 
now that the French were fully seated at the forks 
of the Ohio, the citizens of seven colonies sent dele- 
gates to a Congress which met at Albany, and appointed 
a committee to consider the trouble further. They 
were still unable to agree to do any real work. 

141 



A History of the 

In Europe, the matter received more practical con- 
sideration. The reader who would like to learn what 
was done in Europe, in connection with this war, is 
advised to read Carlyle's "Frederick the Great," first of 
all. For the war that followed between France and 
England was a part of the great "Seven Years War," 
that is so fully treated in Carlyle's "Frederick." And 
Carlyle is one of the two British writers of the Nine- 
teenth Century whose works are all worth oft-repeated 
readings. 

The British King ordered two regiments of red- 
coated regulars (500 men each) to sail for Virginia, 
under command of "our trusty and well-beloved Ed- 
ward Braddock," whose instructions were dated No- 
vember 25, 1754. These soldiers sailed in January, 

1755- 

On hearing of this move the French government 

ordered 3,000 men to Canada under Baron Dieskau. 

But as the Rev. Mr. Parkman says, "In France the 

true ruler was Madam de Pompadour, once the King's 

mistress, now his procuress, and a sort of feminine 

prime minister." Men were appointed to office for 

pleasing her, regardless of their lack of other abilities, 

and Dieskau did not sail until May 3, 1755. Thus 

the British had time to learn all about the expedition, 

and to send a squadron to intercept it. 

Braddock arrived at Hampton, Va., on February 

20, 1755, and an intercolonial conference was convened 

on April 14, at Alexandria, where the two regiments 

were encamped. Here attacks were planned on 

Acadia, Crown Point, Niagara and Fort Duquesne. 

Braddock, with his two regiments of regulars, chose 

142 




FREDERICK THE GREAT. 

From the engraving in the Encyclopedia Londinensis. 



Mississippi Valley. 

to lead the force against Fort Duquesne. He reached 
Will's Creek on May lo. Washington, with some 
hundreds of Colonial militia, had been at work 
there during the preceding winter, and had built Fort 
Cumberland where Will's Creek entered the Potomac, 
(Cumberland, Md.). A month later, June lo, the 
force moved forward with three hundred axemen, cut- 
ting a road twelve feet wide ahead of all. There were 
about 1,200 soldiers in the command, besides officers, 
teamsters and workmen. The line stretched out to a 
length of four miles— "a thin, long, party-colored 
snake, red, blue and brown, trailing through the depth 
of leaves." They were able to advance but a trifle 
more than three miles a day. 

On July 7, Braddock with eighty-six officers and 
1373 men reached Turtle creek, (eight miles from Fort 
Duquesne), having decided to leave his heavy baggage 
under a guard in order to advance more rapidly with 
a fighting force. Here he crossed to the southerly 
side of the Monongahela, continued down stream, and 
on the 9th crossed back again by a ford that lay near 
the dam at the present village of Braddock, Pa. 

At this time Contrecoeur commanded Ft. Duquesne, 
with a force of something over 250 white men and 
nearly 800 Indians. The approach of Braddock had 
created not a little excitement in the fort, and there 
were two British Colonials there, (James Smith and 
Robert Strobo), to take note of what was done. The 
Indians at first refused to fight the British, but when 
they had seen how the red coats marched in close order, 
and that it would be possible to shoot them "like 
pigeons," as one said to Smith, they decided to try it. 

143 



A Hist cry of the 

Accordingly, when Capt. Daniel Lienard de Beaujeu 
was placed in command of the regulars and Canadians, 
on the 9th, with orders to ambush Braddock at the ford 
of the Monongahela, the Indians raised the war whoop. 

Barrels of gun powder, bullets and flints, were 
opened at the fort gate, and the Indians helped them- 
selves. Beaujeu dressed himself like an Indian, (a 
common habit of the French at the time), and with 
108 officers and regulars, 146 Canadians, and 642 In- 
dians, (one account says 62,7), he started at 8 o'clock 
for the ford. It appears, however, that they were in no 
haste to reach the ford. A man could walk the dis- 
tance in two hours, but Braddock crossed unmolested 
at I o'clock. Even when the British sat down and 
ate a luncheon no attack was made. But when Brad- 
dock's advance guard had passed a ravine in the hills 
a mile from the ford, they met a man "dressed like 
an Indian, but wearing a gorget of an officer." This 
man — Beaujeu, no doubt — stopped at sight of the Brit- 
ish, gave an Indian war whoop, waved his hat and 
jumped for a tree. The French regulars, Canadians 
and Indians were then seen coming behind him. The 
greater part of the Canadians fled crying, "Sauve qui 
pent," but the regulars and Indians "treed" themselves, 
and stood still while the British advance guard fired 
three almost harmless volleys into the tree trunks — al- 
most harmless, but not quite, for Beaujeu was killed 
by the third. 

Then the French and Indians began to shoot from 
their safe shelters; and the range was short. No 
braver regular troops than those red coats had ever 
marched into such a battle, but their bravery was their 

144 



BETWEEN WILLS CREEK ^^ MONONGAHELA R IVER, 



Shetvin^ tJLerotite a.njOl'litcajinfJTn-ejtts of tkeJiixqUs'h^Ji.rnxy in^-i75^- 




THE BKADDOCK CAMPAIGN. 



L 



Mississippi Valley. 

destruction. They stood in place in solid masses, scorn- 
ing shelter, and fired back — uselessly as before. But 
a time soon came when flesh and blood could not 
stand the unseen death that pelted them from the brush, 
and they gave way just as Braddock arrived to support 
them with the main part of his force, shouting, "God 
save the King." 

The fresh troops, on meeting the retiring vanguard, 
were thrown into some confusion, but were rallied by 
their officers, and formed into solid masses ; and there, 
with few exceptions, they stood, facing the lead-laden 
storm, and firing back exactly according to the manual. 
The Virginians, almost to a man, took to the trees 
like Indians. Braddock, with vigorous British pro- 
fanity, ordered them back into line, and even killed 
one of them, it is said, with his sword, (see Gordon's 
"Pennsylvania"). A few of the red coats, who also 
sought shelter were beaten back into line or killed by 
the exasperated general. No flinching would be per- 
mitted by this commander. He crowded them to- 
gether until they were as close together as wild pigeons 
on a roost, and they were slaughtered like the pigeons, 
as the Indians had foreseen. It was an army of 
disciplined Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen. As 
firmly as their native islands, they withstood the storm 
until half their number were down — "stood panting, 
their foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firing 
mechanically,"— and then they broke and fled. A mo- 
ment later Braddock fell, shot through the lungs— 
"bleeding, gasping, unable even to curse." He was 
shot down by Thomas Fawcett, whose brother Brad- 
dock had cut down for seeking a tree, says Gordon. 

145 



'A History of the 

The retreat at once became a panic, but Washing- 
ton, with his sheltered Virginians, covered the flight, 
and the Indians turned from slaughter to the gather- 
ing of plunder, and finally went back to Fort Duquesne, 
"driving before them twelve British regulars, stripped 
naked, and with their faces painted black." They 
were to be burned. 

Said James Smith who, from within Ft. Duquesne, 
saw the victorious mob return : "The savages appeared 
frantic with joy, dancing, yelling, brandishing their 
red tomahawks and waving scalps in the air, while the 
great guns of the fort replied to the incessant discharge 
of the rifles without. The most melancholy spectacle 
was the band of prisoners. They appeared dejected and 
anxious. They were led to the banks of the Alleghany" 
and there each was "tied to a stake with his hands 
above his head," and then they were "burned to death." 
The Frenchmen made no efforts to prevent these tor- 
tures. There is every reason to suppose that the French 
approved them. The French had, on several occasions, 
burned Indians to death, and the instances where any 
Frenchman actually interfered in behalf of a British 
prisoner are so rare that one is fully justified in be- 
lieving that the tortures at Fort Duquesne had their 
full approval. 

It seems proper, therefore, to call attention to the 
fact that in all the wars between the British Colonies 
and the Indians, and between the United States and the 
Indians, no captured Frenchman was ever burned to 
death, nor was any captured Indian. Our people saw 
their wives and children outraged, murdered and tor- 
tured by the Indians, but there was never a case where 

146 



Mississippi Valley. 

our men so degraded themselves as to burn to death 
one of the inferior race in retahation. One may re- 
member this with some satisfaction, even in the midst 
of the unspeakable humiliation which has been brought 
upon our nation by the burning of members of an in- 
ferior race during recent years. 

Braddock's wound was mortal. He had faced the 
enemy he justly despised with vigorous, voluble energy 
and courage; for four days he faced death with silent 
resolution. Once, as he recalled the rules his teachers 
had given him, he said aloud, "Who would have 
thought?" And then at 8 o'clock in the evening of 
Sunday, July 13, having seen, at least, that tactics in 
war, as in all other matters, must be adapted to the 
circumstances, he said, "We shall know better how 
to deal with them another time," and then died. 

Out of eighty-six officers in the British force, sixty- 
three were killed. Washington had two horses shot 
under him, and several bullets pierced his clothing as 
he fearlessly exposed himself. Twenty years later, 
an armed host of Americans who had gathered around 
the port of Boston and were staggering beneath a bur- 
den of war that was yet too great for them to carry, 
remembered that battle on the bank of the Mononga- 
hela, and sent word to the Continental Congress that 
they would "rejoice to see this way the beloved Colonel 
Washington." 

Out of 1373 privates and non-commissioned officers, 
459 only escaped unhurt. Among those who escaped 
was a teamster who was to achieve fame in after years. 
His name was Daniel Boone, and he was then twenty- 
one years old. 

147 



A History of the 

The French had three officers killed and two officers 
and two cadets wounded. Of their regular privates 
four were hurt. The Canadians lost five wounded, 
and the Indians twenty-seven killed and wounded. 

In its immediate result, the victory seemed almost 
decisive for the French, for the whole frontier, from 
Pennsylvania south, was left unguarded, and every 
tribe of red men, save only the well-settled portion 
of the Iroquois at the eastern end of their "long house," 
was fully committed to French interests. 

And yet the success of the French here led them 
ultimately to their downfall. For as soon as they 
learned that the British were fully defeated, they began 
raiding the British frontier, and the devilish cruelty 
of these raids united the colonists and brought them 
into the field in overwhelming numbers. 

The orders to raid the home makers on the British 
frontiers were issued in France — "manage on occasions 
in which there may be acts of violence in such a manner 
as not to appear the aggressor," said a letter to Du- 
quesne dated September 6, 1754, but "if yon consider 
it necessary to make the Indians act offensively against 
the English, his Majesty will approve of your using 
that expedient." 

As a matter of fact little effort was made to avoid 
appearing as aggressors. Captain Dumas succeeded 
Contrecoeur at Fort Duquesne, and he immediately 
began sending parties of Indians under French officers 
to raid the Pennsylvania frontiers. In speaking of 
these raids Father Godfroy Cocquard, S. J., in a letter 
to his brother, written early in 1757, said: 

"The Indians do not make any prisoners; they 
148 



Mississippi Valley. 

kill all they meet, men, women and children. Every- 
day they have some in their kettle, and after having 
abused the women and maidens, they slaughter or hum 
them." (N. Y. Colonial Manuscripts, vol. x, p. 528.) 

"The upper country Indians have really laid waste 
Virginia and Pennsylvania," wrote Montcalm in 1756. 
The Indians on the Upper Lakes heard of the vast 
amount of plunder gathered when Braddock fell, and 
they came to get more by raiding the undefended col- 
onists. 

"In April [1756] there had been in those parts 
twenty detachments of Delawares and Chauanons 
[Shawnees] ; these were joined by more than sixty 
Indians from the Five Iroquois Nations who have com- 
mitted frightful ravages. The only resource remaining 
to the inhabitants was to abandon their houses and to 
remove to the sea coast. Three forts have been burnt, 
among the rest one containing a garrison of forty- 
seven men. The garrison was summoned to surrender, 
but having refused, the fort was set on fire in the night. 
The garrison attempted to escape, and the Indians gave 
no quarter," so says "Abstract of Despatches from 
Canada, Vol. x, N. Y. Colonial Documents. M. Dou- 
ville comanded the last named assault, and was killed. 

Parkman notes that Dumas gave to each French 
officer in command of a party of raiders a zuritten order 
to keep the Indians from torturing prisoners. Park- 
man thinks these orders were sincerely given. But 
the student of history may reasonably ask why were the 
orders written in every case? An officer obeys an 
oral order as carefully as a written one. One of these 
written orders was found on Douville whose forces 

149 



A History of the 

"gave no quarter." The French commander not only 
knew that the Indians would give no quarter, but he 
knew that "every day they have some in their kettles," 
as Father Cocquard wrote. If the French King, in 
his orders to Duquesne was careful to say that "acts 
of violence" must be managed so as not "to appear the 
aggressor," is it too much to suppose that Dumas was 
animated by the same regard for appearances, and the 
same disregard of the infinite horrors of Indian atro- 
city? 

The extent of the country raided is shown by the 
fact that on August 2, 1756, the Chevalier Villiers 
burned the log fort called Grandville on the north bank 
of the blue Juniata, a mile west of the present town 
of Lewiston, Mifflin county, Pa. He was but sixty 
miles from Philadelphia. 

The French officers, in their reports on aggressions 
very often used the term "disgust the English." What 
they meant to say was that they believed the raids 
would intimidate the Colonists — fill them with the 
sense of inferiority to the French. 

During the years 1756 and 1757, (called by Win- 
sor the two dismal years), and in a part of 1758, the 
state of affairs seemed to justify the French hope. To 
keep back the Indians the Governor of Virginia built 
a fort, (1756), on the Holston river about thirty miles 
above the present site of Knoxville. Colonel Bird built 
another in the same county in 1758. Both were well 
garrisoned and mounted cannon, but both were 
whelmed by Indians and the garrisons forced by heavy 
losses to leave. A line of forts was built along the 
frontier. At the demand of the backwoodsmen, and in 

150 



Mississippi Valley. 

spite of Quaker protests, a reward of 136 Spanish dol- 
lars was offered for every scalp of a male Indian, over 
twelve years of age, and fifty dollars for a squaw 
scalp. "John Potter, sheriff of Cumberland County, 
declared that the only way to prevent slaughter and 
destruction on the frontier was to send a strong force 
into the center of the Indian stronghold. His wo.^'ds 
are worth further consideration. While it is true that 
the friendship of the Indians might have been retained 
had they been treated on all occasions with Quaker 
kindness and justice, it is equally true that when war 
hjJ been precipitated by wrong treatment, the quickest 
an.l therefore the most merciful way to end it was 
to send a strong force under a strong man into the 
center of the Indian country. The advice of John 
Potter cannot be emphasized too much. If a people 
are attacked, the best method of self-defence is to strike 
into the heart of the enemy's country. The Governor 
of Virginia refused to heed John Potter. He built a 
chain of forts instead. So the raiding continued un- 
checked. 

In August, 1756, the French captured Oswego, 
"using in the operation the cannon Braddock had lost 
on the Monongahela." On July 6, 1758, Abercrombie 
was defeated at Ticonderoga. 

Then the bloody tide was turned. At the end of 
July, Amherst, seconded by "the slender, nervous and 
almost dying Wolf," captured Louisburg. Coming 
thence to Lake Champlain, Amherst brought victory 
with him. Lieutenant Colonel John Bradstreet, with 
"an amphibious little army" of 3,000 men, crossed Lake 
Ontario, and captured Fort Frontenac on the morning 

151 



A History of the 

of August 26, 1758. Nine armed vessels were In the 
harbor. Seven of these were destroyed, and two loaded 
with supplies needed for a new fort building on the 
site of Oswego, which the French had abandoned. 

By this success Bradstreet gave the French power 
in the Mississippi Valley a serious wound. Their com- 
mand over Lake Ontario, and so over their highway 
from Montreal to the southwest, was gone. Supplies 
could still be sent up the river from New Orleans, and 
from Illinois, but the chain of French posts, stretched 
first by La Salle, was broken. 

Meantime General John Forbes left Philadelphia, 
(end of June, 1758), with an army to take Fort Du- 
quesne, and on November 5, he was on Loyal Hannon 
Creek, in the town of Ligonier, Westmoreland County, 
Pa., fifty miles from his destination. He had advanced 
by slow but sure stages ; and having studied well Brad- 
dock's disaster, he had trained his force, (between 
6,000 and 7,000 men, of whom 5,000 were from Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia and South Carolina), to meet the 
French and Lidians in their own manner of warfare. 

It was an efTficient force, but the Quakers of Phila- 
delphia forestalled it in its work. They opened the 
way so effectually that Fort Duquesne might have been 
taken without firing a gun in the whole campaign. And 
none was fired in the vicinity of the fort. 

That the Quakers had no direct influence on the 
French scarcely need be said. But while Forbes was 
on the way west they persuaded the Governor of Penn- 
sylvania to send Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian 
preacher, with a pipe of peace from them to the 
Indians beyond the Ohio. Post had earned the con- 

152 



Mississippi Valley. 

fidence of the Indians by his sincerity when a mission- 
ary among them, but he took his hfe in his hands 
when he accepted this task, for it was certain the 
French would have him assassinated, if possible. How- 
ever, he reached his red friends in November, and they 
accepted the pipe of peace the Quakers had sent them. 

Sufficient credit has not been given to this mission 
of peace, in our histories because, probably, the writers 
have supposed that Forbes and his force frightened the 
Indians into submission. But a careful reading of 
Post's second journal, (see the "Olden Time"), shows 
clearly, first, that Post was entirely truthful, and, 
second, that the Indians changed their allegiance from 
the French to the British (in spite of every opposition 
on the part of the French officers), because of the 
message Post carried to them. They did this in the 
face of the overwhelming defeat of a detachment of 
Forbes's army, 800 strong, under Major Grant, where- 
in nearly 300 men were lost, (Sept. 15, 1758). 

Forbes, after a council of war, had determined to 
proceed no further than Loyal Hannon Creek, and he 
would have persisted in this determination, but for 
the defection of the Indians from the French interests 
after they had seen the Quaker pipe of peace. And the 
French would have stood firm at Fort Duquesne but 
for this defection. French officers were present at the 
public councils Post held with the Indians, but on 
the night of November 22d, 1758, "the Indians danced 
around the fire until midnight for joy of their brethren, 
the English coming," and the next day the French 
gave up hope. 

Returning to Fort Duquesne, on the afternoon of 
153 



A History of the 

the 23d, De Ligneris, who was then in command, and 
who had been watching Post, prepared his forces for 
embarkation. All the buildings and the fort were 
fired. Under the ominous shadow of the smoke the 
French divided themselves into two companies, and at 
daylight, one under De Ligneris went up the Alleghany 
to Venango. The other paddled down the Ohio to 
Fort Massac, a station not far from the Mississippi, 
left there a small garrison, and then went on to Fort 
Chartres. 

On November 25, General Forbes entered Fort 
Duquesne, and having repaired it, he renamed it Fort 
Pitt, from which we have the name of the modern 
city of Pittsburg. 

How the British won at Fort Niagara and at Lake 
Champlain in 1759; how and why Wolf on the Plains 
of Abraham said, "Now, God be praised, I will die in 
peace," need not be recounted here, even though these 
victories shut out forever the French from the Great 
Valley which La Salle had given them. But a word 
regarding French official life in America during the 
last days will prove instructive. To quote the words 
of Parkman, ("Wolf and Montcalm") : 

"A contagion of knavery ran through the colony. 
Conspicuous among these military thieves 
was Major Pean. 'La Petite Pean' had married a 
young wife, famed for beauty, vivacity and wit. Bigot 
[the Intendant] who was near sixty, became her lover ; 
and the fortune of Pean was made. . . . He had 
bought as a speculation a large quantity of grain with 
money of the King, lent him by the Intendant. Bigot 
then issued an order raising the commodity to a price 

154 



Mississippi Valley. 

far above that paid by Pean, who thus made a profit 
of 50,000 crowns. A few years later his wealth was 
estimated at from two to four million francs. Madam 
Pean became a power in Canada, the dispenser of favor 
and offices. Pean, jilted by his own wife, made pros- 
perous love to the wife of his partner, Penisseault, and 
after the war took her with him to France ; while the 
aggrieved husband found consolation in the wives of 
the small functionaries under his orders." 

And while Wolf was before Quebec, and food was 
so scarce that the people were placed on a ration of 
two ounces of bread a day, "fowls by the thousand 
were fattened on wheat," that Bigot and his followers, 
male and female, might have delicate food for their 
carousals. 

After the fall of Quebec, the remainder of this 
war — the great Seven Years War — was fought out in 
Europe. In November, 1762, the plenipotentiaries of 
England, France and Spain, at a meeting in Paris, 
agreed to make peace. One condition of the treaty 
was that Canada should be ceded to Great Britain, with 
all of the French claim east of the Mississippi. Fear- 
ing that, in the negotiations, he would have to give 
the whole valley to the British, the French King fore- 
stalled such a disaster by a secret treaty, (dated Nov. 
3, 1762), in which he gave to Spain the island on 
which New Orleans stood, and all the French posses- 
sions west of the Mississippi. 

Robert Rene Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, by honest 
work, filed a claim in the name of France, on the broad 
basin of the Mississippi. Honest work only was needed 
to secure to that nation the full title in fee simple. But 

155 



A History of the 

those whom France sent to complete her title took 
for a pattern of life the example found in the King's 
court. From first to last the most exciting theme 
among them — the theme that created deadly quarrels 
most frequently — was the matter of precedence in 
social and public functions. From the first to the last 
they sought the sea of beaver instead of the South 
sea. In gathering wealth they flung honor to the 
winds, where they had any to fling, and when they 
had accumulated a store, they spent it as their King 
was spending the whole French nation. It was be- 
cause the dominant French in America were foul ex- 
udations of the Court over which the Pompadour ruled^ 
that the French nation was driven across the Atlantic. 
When ten righteous men could not be found in all the 
plain, the fire of God swept it. It was in accordance 
with an inexorable law of nature that the man with 
the axe should at last supplant the vagabond with the 
sword. 




156 




HERNANDO DP. SOTO. 
The spelling of lii^ ^nven iiaint; is as varied as his biographers 




IX 



THE SPANISH IN THE GREAT VALLEY. 



De Soto's Character as a Highway Robber Plainly Des- 
cribed — Raids through the American Wilderness that 
turned an Army of Glittering "Knights" into Wilder- 
ness Tramps — The splendid Courage of an Explorer 
compared with the stubborn folly of a Highwayman 
— The first thought of Proclaiming an American 
Nation — A peep into the Bed Chamber of a French 
Lady — "Ca ira, les Aristocrates a la Lanterne." 

Brief shall suffice for the story of the first Span- 
ish expedition to the banks of the Mississippi, for the 
men in it were animated by the spirit of highway rob- 
bers, and nothing came of their work. 

It was on April 6, 1538, that Hernando de Soto 
sailed from Spain on the expedition that led him to 
the banks of the Mississippi River, and gave him the 

157 



A History of the 

credit of being the first more or less civilized man to 
see the stream and explore any part of the mighty 
basin. The story of this expedition has fascinated 
more than one poetic mind. "It was poetry put into 
action; it was the knight-errantry of the Old World 
carried into the depths of the American wilderness," 
says one writer. A calm study of the facts, however, 
shows that the work was detestable. Hernando de Soto 
had been a follower of Pizarro, and had enriched him- 
self by the merciless slaughter and robbery of the Pe- 
ruvians. Returning to Spain he was greatly honored 
because of his success, but neither his vanity nor his 
greed was satisfied. 

"De Soto burned with ambition to signalize him- 
self equally with Cortez and Pizarro ;" the region north 
of the Gulf of Mexico was the only one left to explore ; 
this region was supposed to hold as much gold and sil- 
ver as the countries to the south, and to Florida De 
Soto would go. 

In all, 1,000 men, of whom 350 were mounted, 
sailed from Havana on May 12, 1539, to Florida. 
"They provided everything which the experience of 
former expeditions could suggest, or avarice or cruelty 
dictate * * * chains and fetters for the captives, and 
even blood hounds to assist in drawing them from 
their hiding places." 

The soldiers were completely covered with armor 
that was trimmed with gold, and they were armed 
with swords, spears and cross bows, only eighteen hav- 
ing arquebusses, as the rude muskets of the period 
were called. They were gay "as if it had been an ex- 
cursion of a bridal party." Whether awake or asleep, 

158 



Mississippi Valley. 

they dreamed only of finding cities of red men, with 
gold-filled temples devoted to the worship of the sun. 
These temples were to be robbed. The red men were 
to be set to work as slaves in the mines, with armed 
men to keep them at it, and priests to baptize them as 
they expired under the lash or by more cruel torture. 

Having landed at Espiritu Santo Bay, Florida, De 
Soto led his "steel clad cavaliers" on their ''prancing 
steeds" into the wilderness of Florida. Thereafter, until 
the spring of 1541, this "glittering host" with their 
waving plumes ranged the interior in search of gold. 
The red men were slaughtered in open battle, and by 
deliberate butchery after they had surrendered as pri- 
soners. They were maimed and they were tortured, 
because they had no gold or silver. A thousand, chiefly 
women and children, were burned alive in a huge pub- 
lic wigwam at one village, after one battle. But the 
Indians were not cowed, for they never ceased to hover 
around and fight back. 

The Spaniards had come to take gold from its 
rightful owners, but they never saw a color in the pan. 
Instead of finding gold they lost what they had brought 
with them. Their waving plumes were broken in the 
brush. Their glittering armor was rusted in the 
swamps, and battered by the impetuous red home- 
defenders. Their clothes were worn out. Their horses 
were killed. A time came, (it was in the second year) , 
when they were glad to use rawhide shields in place 
of glittering steel, and the skins of wild animals in 
place of velvets and laces. With the war whoop of 
the red man ever sounding in their ears, many of them 
came at last to long for a speedy return home. 

159 



A History of the 

But the vanity of De Soto held them fast. Others 
might return and admit defeat, not he. The poet says 
that ambition fired his fortitude, but in- cold fact, it 
was sheer vanity, what would have been called splen- 
did courage in an explorer, was stubborn folly in him. 
The motive made the difference. So he led his droop- 
ing, fagged followers av/ay from the port, (Bay of 
Achusi), where ships were awaiting to carry him to 
Cuba, and continue on through the wilderness. 

It was now that De Soto found the Mississippi. 
On April 13, 1541, he reached a stream which he 
named Rio Grande because it was so large — the Mis- 
sissippi of modern days. Up this stream the expediticai 
toiled for four days to an open country. There they 
encamped for twenty days while they built boats to carry 
them over, and, presumably on May 7, they crossed the 
river — fought their way across, for armed red men 
stood on the western bank and came afloat tomeet them. 

A local historian (Monette) thinks De Soto crossed 
"within thirty miles of Helena," but he adds that "the 
changes of the channel in the lapse of 300 years may 
have been such as to defy identification." 

From the Mississippi, De Soto marched west and 
north to a mountainous region — the Ozarks — and then 
gave up hope. Turning around he came once more 
to the Great River. He arrived in the spring of 1542, 
at the village of Guachoya, located on the Mississippi, 
twenty miles below the Arkansas river. Here, while 
building vessels, "the incessant fatigue of body and 
anxiety of mind, together with the influence of climate, 
brought on a slow, wasting fever; and here, on June 5, 
1542, De Soto died." 

160 



Mississippi Valley. 

It had been the habit of the near by Indians, (Qua- 
paws they, and a fierce nation when defending their 
homes), to dig up the body of every buried Spaniard, 
quarter it and hang the pieces on trees and posts, as 
a warning to the predaceous host. To save the body 
of De Soto from such a fate, his followers made a cof- 
fin of a green oak log, placed the body therein, and, 
carrying it to the center of the Great River, sank it "in 
nineteen fathoms of water." 

It was for an end like this that vanity and greed 
had carried De Soto into the American wilderness. 
His followers, under Luis de Mascoso, made another 
trip into the wilds to the west of the river, but re- 
turned in fewer numbers and with fewer arms and less 
clothing. No leader now had any thought but to es- 
cape the wilderness, and building such boats as they 
could, they launched forth on the Great River, on July 
2, 1543, a remnant of 350 squalid, ragged wilderness 
tramps out of the plumed, glittering "knight-errants" 
that had come to fatten on blood and gold. So they 
reached Panuco, Mexico, and disappeared in the 
armies maintained in Spanish America by the throne 
of Spain. 

If a first view of the mouth of a river gave its 
water shed to the nation whose explorers obtained 
such a view, then the Mississippi Valley was right- 
fully Spain's. Don Alonzo de Pineda discovered the 
mouth of the stream in 15 19, and named it Espiritu 
Santo. In 1528 Cabeza de Vaca crossed the river, 
and then De Soto explored, after a fashion, a consid- 
erable portion of the valley. Spain might, indeed, have 
said that De Soto's expedition "took out the first pa- 

161 



A History of the 

pers" for a claim, if we may use the homesteader's 
vernacular. But De Soto's expedition completely sat- 
isfied the Spanish in one sense; they would have no 
more of that region for more than lOO years. But it 
was a copy of the Spanish history of this region that in- 
spired La Salle in his work. 

When, in November, 1762, the peace commissions 
gathered at Paris to end the Seven Years War, France 
was not only anxious to thwart as far as possible the 
British ambition for territorial expansion, but she was 
willing to get rid of the burden involved in supporting 
a governor in Louisiana. The last Governor, (Ker- 
lerec), had used 10,000,000 livres in four years — os- 
tensibly in preparing for war. Spain therefore once 
more sent a soldier of repute to the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi. 

The treaty by which Spain acquired Louisiana was 
completed on November 13, 1762, but for a time the 
French retained control, and the people of New Or- 
leans knew nothing of the transfer. 

It was during this period of Spanish ownership 
and French control that St. Louis was founded. Pierre 
Liqueste Lacede obtained a charter which gave "the 
necessary powers to trade with the "Missouri river In- 
dians, and "as far north as the river St. Peters." On 
August 3, 1763, Laclede, with August and Pierre Cho- 
teau, members of his family, (sons of his mistress), 
left New Orleans. He reached St. Genevieve on No- 
vember 3. Finding no houses large enough to hold 
his goods, he went on to Ft. Chartres, where he re- 
mained for the winter, spending the time in explor- 
ing the Mississippi for a site for a trading station. 

162 




DON ANTONIO DE ULLOA. 
Governor of Louisiana, 1764. 



Mississippi Valley. 

At a distance of eighteen miles below the mouth 
of the Missouri river he found, on the west bank, "a 
growth of heavy timber, skirting the river bank, and 
behind it, at an elevation of some thirty feet," a "beau- 
tiful expanse of undulating prairie." To this spot he 
brought his party and possessions on February 15, 
1764, and laying out a town site, he named it St. Louis. 

Meantime M. D'Abbadie was sent out by the 
French government to rule New Orleans. He took 
command June 29, 1763, knowing nothing of the sale 
to Spain, but during the summer rumors of the sale 
came and in October the Government confirmed the 
rumors. Meantime D'Abbadie died and one Aubry 
succeeded him. 

The French inhabitants were excited and alarmed. 
Commissioners were sent to Paris to petition for the 
repurchase of the territory, but in vain. In 1765 a let- 
ter was received from Don Antonio de Ulloa, a com- 
modore in the Spanish navy, and a man of letters as 
well. It was written at Havana, on July loth, and an- 
nounced that he had been appointed governor and 
would "soon have the honor" to come and render "all 
the services the inhabitants may desire." 

He arrived at New Orleans on March 5, 1766. He 
was a man of learning and an author of wide repute, 
but he was coldly received. A committee of merchants 
presented a petition that seemed to Ulloa to be "inso- 
lent and menacing" in its tone. The superior council, 
a legislative body, demanded the exhibition of Ulloa's 
commission. The French troops declined absolutely 
to enter the Spanish service, although the agreement 
with Spain had provided that they should do so. 

163 



A History of the 

Because of the mutinous spirit of the people *'the 
really mild and liberal Ulloa" did not show his com- 
mission, or take formal charge of affairs, but man- 
aged matters as well as he could through Aubry. He 
began a series of concessions for the benefit of trade. 
He allowed the French flag to fly. He did more to 
conciliate the people than he should have done, for 
his mildness was misunderstood, and as time passed, 
advantage was taken of it to create an insurrection. 
"Now it was that a deficiency in habits of mature 
thought and self-control, and, in that study of recipro- 
cal justice and natural right, became to the people of 
New Orleans and Louisiana a calamity." (Cable.) 

On October 25, 1768, a great mob from the Aca- 
dian and German coasts entered the city. They were 
armed with fowling pieces, with muskets and all sorts 
of weapons." The cannon at the gates of the fortifi- 
cations had been spiked during the night. The people 
of the city rose in a body. Ulloa and his family were 
obliged to board a Spanish frigate to escape the mob. 
The superior council at a meeting, the next day, adopt- 
ed a report demanding that Ulloa leave the colony, and 
on October 31, he did leave, "enduring at the last 
moment the songs and jeers of a throng of night roy- 
sterers." 

The leaders of the mob at first thought to set up 
a new nation, and they applied to the British of Pen- 
sacola for help. But failing to get help they abandoned 
this early thought of American freedom, and begged 
Louis XV. to take them back. "Great King, the best 
of Kings, father and protector of your subjects, deign, 
sire, to receive into your royal and paternal bosom the 

164 



Mississippi Valley. 

children who have no other desire than to die your 
subjects!" said the petition sent to Paris. Neverthe- 
less here was the first colony in America that enter- 
tained the idea of proclaiming her independence. 

But both the thought of liberty, and the petition 
to "the father and protector of your subjects," failed. 
On August 1 8, 1769, Don Alexandre O'Reilly, landed 
at New Orleans with 600 picked soldiers, from a fleet 
of twenty-four ships, that lay at anchor in the Crescent. 
The jeers that filled the ears of the departing Ulloa 
were hushed. In place of them were heard the cheers 
of the thronging soldiers. But when the flag of France 
came down, and that of Spain arose, the people wept 
aloud in spite of bayonets. 

O'Reilly was Irish by birth, but by long training 
had become a Spaniard in his mental characteristics. 
He had come to punish the leaders of the insurrection, 
but he concealed his thoughts. On August 31, he in- 
vited, with "professions of esteem and friendship," 
the leaders of the insurrection to attend a levee at his 
ofiicial residence. They accepted, and "while enjoy- 
ing the hospitality of his house, were invited by O'Reil- 
ly himself into an adjoining apartment," where they 
were arrested by armed soldiers. (Monette.) The 
men so arrested were Focault, former commissary- 
general; De Noyant and Boisblanc, of the superior 
council; La Freniere, attorney-general, and Braud, 
public printer; Marquis, an officer; Doucet, a lawyer; 
Villiere, Mazeut and Petit, planters. John and Jo- 
seph Milhet, Caresse, and W. Poupet, merchants, were 
arrested several days later. "The trials which followed 
were hasty, arbitrary and tyranical in the extreme." 

165 



A History of the 

De Noyant, La Freniere, Marquis, Joseph and Caresse 
were convicted and sentenced to die, with confiscation 
of property. They were shot to death on September 28. 

In connection with the execution of these French 
mutineers Gayarre gives us an interesting, and per- 
haps not impertinent peep into the bed chamber of a 
grand lady of the day. The property of the executed 
men having been confiscated, an inventory of the house- 
hold effects of each was taken. In the bed room of 
Madam Villiere the confiscators found a "cypress bed- 
stead, three feet wide, by six in length with a mattress 
of corn shucks and one of feathers on the top; a bol- 
ster of corn shucks, (split fine and curled, without a 
doubt), and a coarse cotton counterpane; six chairs 
of cypress wood, with straw bottoms; some candle 
sticks with" candles made of the wax of the myrtle 
bush. It was a bed room in marked contrast to "the 
hooped petticoat, the brocaded gown, the rich head 
dress ;" and other fine clothing of the lady. 

O'Reilly came to enforce the submission of the 
people. His power was ample and his methods ef- 
fective. Having shot five, he sent four more to Morro 
Castle, at Havana, where they were imprisoned one 
year. That ended the insurrection spirit. 

Martin says the population of Louisiana, at this time, 
was estimated at 13,540 souls. New Orleans held 
3,190, of whom 1,803 were free whites, 31 free blacks, 
1,225 slaves. Martin gives St. Louis a population of 
891, meaning thereby, apparently, the region of which 
St. Louis was the chief settlement. 

The pictures of life under the early Spanish rule 
are interesting. "I found the English in complete pos- 

166 



Mississippi Valley. 

session of the commerce of the colony. They had in 
this town their merchants and traders, with open stores 
and shops, and I can safely assert that they pocketed 
nine-tenths of the money spent here," reported O'Reil- 
ly. But he soon "drove off all the English traders," 
and all other individuals of that nation. 

The British having, meantime, come into control 
of West Florida, and the east shore of the Mississippi 
above the Bayou Manchac, and having moreover, the 
right of free navigation of the big river, had not only 
established trading posts on their own territory, con- 
tiguous to the French domain, but during the rule 
of D'Abbadie and Aubry had entered the city itself, ob- 
taining permits, no doubt, by bribing the officials. 

When driven out by O'Reilly the British merchants, 
knowing that they had the right to the free navigation 
of the river, built "two large floating ware houses, fit- 
ted up with counters and shelves, and stocked with as- 
sorted merchandise" — the first houseboat of the Mis- 
sissippi known to the record. These were moored at 
Gretna, opposite the city, a good part of the time, but 
where poled (pushed), up stream when the exigencies 
of trade among the "Cajuns" or at the German Coast 
demanded. "Anything offered in trade was acceptable,, 
revenue laws were mentioned only in jest, profits were 
large, credit was free and long, and business was 
brisk." 

Martin makes an estimate of the business of Louisi- 
ana province, at this time, and places the annual ex- 
ports at: Indigo, $100,000; deer skins, $80,000; lum- 
ber, $50,000; naval stores, (resin, etc.), $12,000; rice, 
peas and beans, $4,000; tallow, $4,000 — a total of 

167 



A History of the 

$250,000. The smuggling trade done with the Span- 
ish colonies before O'Reilly's time reached $60,000 a 
year. 

f' "The indigo of Louisiana was greatly inferior to 
that of Hispaniola; the planters being quite unskill- 
ful and inattentive in the manufacture of it." 

The culture of sugar cane, introduced by the Jesuits, 
had not flourished. A M. Dubreuil, in 1758, had 
erected a sugar mill in the lower part of the present 
city, and a cargo of soft sugar was exported to France 
in 1765. But half of it leaked from the barrels during 
the voyage, and the sugar made thereafter, for a long 
time, was consumed at home. 

Some time after O'Reilly arrived at New Orleans, 
a fleet of transports came up the river bringing 2,600 
Spanish soldiers. The ships with food supplies failed 
to arrive in time, and provisions became so scarce that 
the price of flour quickly rose to $20 a barrel. In 
this condition of affairs came Oliver Pollock, a Balti- 
more merchant, with a ship load of flour which he 
offered to O'Reilly for the use of the soldiers, and the 
people, at his own price — a notable incident in the his- 
tory of American commerce. O'Reilly declined to 
fix the price and Pollock put it at $15. Then O'Reilly 
bought it and "granted to Pollock the free trade of 
Louisiana" for life — a privilege worth much more 
than five dollars per barrel on one cargo of flour. 

O'Reilly sailed from New Orleans on October 29, 
1770, leaving Louis de Unzaga, with 1,200 soldiers, to 
rule. O'Reilly having pacified, Unzaga was to concili- 
ate, the people. How he succeeded he tells in a letter 
to the Bishop of Cuba (1773), in which he says there 

168 



Mississippi Valley. 

are not in New Orleans and its environs 2,000 souls 
of all professions and conditions. Many Creoles (that 
is, as Cable says, "the French speaking ruling class"), 
had emigrated to St. Domingo, taking with them me- 
chanics and other valuable citizens — a movement 
which those who lived long enough, greatly regretted, 
less than twenty years later, when the negroes arose." 

In place of these emigrants came many Spaniards, 
and in one respect the Spanish families were better 
for the country than the French had been, for they 
came to make Louisiana their home, where the French 
had, to a great extent, looked upon the country as an 
abiding place where those with sufficient influence 
could accumulate wealth. But not all the French emi- 
grated, and in consequence two social communities 
were created in one town — an official Spanish com- 
munity, and a land-owning, French-speaking aristoc- 
racy. 

A curious result followed. ]\Iany Spanish officials, 
including Gov. Unzaga, who succeeded him, married 
French ladies. But "in the society balls when the un- 
compromising civilian of the one nationality met the 
equally unyielding military officers of the other, the 
cotillion was French or Spanish, according to the 
superior strength of the Creole or Spanish party." 
And "more than once" there was "actual onset and 
bloodshed," to determine which was the stronger, with 
duels a plenty next day. 

Spanish Ursuline nuns, brought from Havana to 
teach Spanish, "found themselves compelled to teach 
in French, and to content themselves with the feeble 
achievement of hearing the Spanish catechism from 

169 



A History of the 

girls who recited it with tears roHing down their 
cheeks" (Cable). 

"I cannot flatter his majesty so much as to say that 
the people have ceased to be French at heart," wrote 
Unzaga in 1773, and Bishop Penalvert in 1795 re- 
peated the same thought. 

Not only did Unzaga fail to make Spanish of the 
Creoles; he and his successors failed absolutely to 
create a colony worth comparison in any respect, save 
one, with the Anglo-Saxon communities at the North- 
east. When a stranger passed the thresholds of New 
Orleans he was "welcomed with such manners as were 
habitual in the most accomplished court of Europe." 
In "artificially graceful deportment" (Gayarre), and 
in that only, this Latin-American colony led all other 
American colonies. In all practical matters, the Lou- 
isiana territory was sunk into the rich soil of the valley 
by its official incubus. 

The local historians tell of the convents, the 
churches, the hospitals and the fortifications that were 
built in New Orleans, but the most careful search of 
all that they have written shows but one indication or 
promise of the magnificent future that awaited the city. 
It was this — When the French Republic arose to "fire 
the Creoles' long-suppressed enthusiasm," the "Mar- 
seillaise was wildly called for in the theatre ; and in the 
drinking shops was sung defiantly the song, ' Ca ira — 
ca ira, les aristocratcs a la lantcrnc' " A thought — 
even a hope of self-government, ill-conceived, and 
dimly seen, indeed, and yet unmistakable, was in the 
hearts of this people. They were lying in the cradle 
of a paternal despotism, but by and by they would walk. 

170 




X 



PONTIACS WAR AS SEEN IN THE VALLEY. 

The True Cause of Pontiac's War Considered — The Sav- 
age Victories at Erie, Le Boeuf and Venango — Fort 
Pitt twice Besieged — Saved by the First Armored 
War Ship known to American History — The Des- 
perate Fight at Bushy Run — A Comparison of 
Losses — The Universal Law of Compensation has 
been Written in Blood from the Blue Juniata to 
Jackson's Hole. 

To learn the origin of Pontiac's war, one must go 
back to the evacuation of Fort Duqtiesne, November 
24, 175S, because the Indians began to grow angry 
very soon after that event; and they were angered 
because of what followed naturally (alas!) as a result 
of British domination. As soon as Fort Duquesne 
came into the possession of the British, the traders 

171 



A History of the 

began to stream through the passes. These traders 
had, in former times, defrauded the Indians by finesse. 
The French traders had made more than 700 per cent, 
profit (La Houtan), but both the British and French 
had always made many presents to the influential mem- 
bers of the tribes. When the French government could 
no longer assist the French trader, however, the Brit- 
ish traders had almost a monopoly of the Indian traffic, 
and the one brutally odious characteristic of the Anglo- 
Saxon — his contemptuous disregard of the rights of 
inferior races — displayed itself. Where the traders 
had bribed, they now bullied, the Indians. Whom they 
had caressed, they now kicked from their path. In- 
stead of adroit swindlers, they became highway rob- 
bers without masks. 

Even the officers and the soldiers who replaced the 
French in the frontier posts after the fall of Quebec 
(1760), forgot, if they ever learned, that soldiers are 
trained solely to protect the weak. The Indian had 
been received at the stations with flattery and feasting; 
he was now, with undisguised disgust, kicked from the 
premises. 

This matter seems important because the Indians, 
as a mass, were not incited to go to war under Pontiac 
by any encroachment of settlers actually made in the 
territory France had surrendered. The prime moving 
cause of this war was the bearing of the traders and 
soldiers who came to and were stationed among the 
Indians. Pontiac and his long-headed sachems saw, 
indeed, that British colonial farmers would follow the 
soldiers to the British forts, and would there clear 
away the forests — destroy the hunting grounds — but 

172 




MAJOR ROBERT ROOF.RS. 

Indian fighter, ranger, English spy, etc. From an engraved 
portrait of 1770. 



Mississippi Valley. 

they were not aroused to a point where they would 
resent the foreseen intrusion until the aggressive ar- 
rogance of the British forerunners became unbearable. 

In 1760 Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, was 
willing to be the friend of the British. Major Robert 
Rogers, while on his way to take over the French forts 
at Detroit and Mackinac, met Pontiac where Cleve- 
land, Ohio, now stands. It was a meeting of two able 
warriors. Pontiac, on learning the mission of the 
British forces, not only bade them go on, but he sent 
messengers who shielded them from the attack of In- 
dians along the Detroit river. And that he remained 
neutral, if not friendly, for some time after the British 
took possession of all the French forts is manifest from 
the fact that several small conspiracies were created 
among the Indians living between the Alleghanies and 
the Illinois, in which Pontiac did not appear. 

Pontiac might have been made the firm friend of 
the whites— he would have been made a friend had he 
been treated with kindly consideration. The histor- 
ians rail much at the "stubborn Quakers" of Pennsyl- 
vania for refusing to vote supplies during Pontiac's 
war, but they omit the fact that if Quakers had been 
employed to deal with the Western Indians, there 
would have been no war with Pontiac. The Pontiac 
war was due to outrageous doings of white men in 
contact with the red, and the utter neglect of the au- 
thorities in the seats of government. As the time 
passed, Pontiac saw the trend of British domination— 
that the red men were to be subjugated by a race whose 
arrogance and insolence were unendurable, and then 
he prepared for war. 

173 



A History of the 

Pontiac knew that the French had been defeated 
at Niagara and Quebec, but he did not know that the 
French nation was staggering to its knees under a 
weight of corruption too great to be borne. He sup- 
posed that if the red men were all to unite they would 
be joined by the French, as of old, and that with one 
mighty upheaval those united powers could sweep the 
British into the sea. With shoulders humping and 
hands chopping the air, the French vehemently en- 
couraged this view, and Pontiac determined to try. 

The writers speak of this war as Pontiac's "con- 
spiracy." They call the artifices by which he and his 
men strove to get advantages over the white soldiers 
as treachery. In like manner Indian warriors have 
been styled horse thieves. But remembering that civ- 
ilized naval officers have disguised warships as mer- 
chantmen, and that civilized governments, long after 
Pontiac's death, authorized private armed ships to prey 
on the unarmed merchantmen of the enemy, we will 
speak of Pontiac and his men as wild men — savages 
only. 

How Pontiac fasted and prayed and dreamed 
dreams ; how he gathered the tribes to a great council, 
and fired them with his own mad enthusiasm ; how the 
Frenchmen helped on the combination, and promised 
to take part in the actual war; how the red sweetheart 
of the commander at Detroit betrayed the plot in time 
to save the garrison there; how Pontiac and his sixty 
warriors, with sawed off guns under their blankets, and 
a lie on their lips came to the fort, to stagger with 
astonishment as they saw the troops under arms and 
heard the drums roll; how they struck on May lo, 

174 



Mississippi Valley. 

1763, nevertheless; and how until October 12, the in- 
congruous forces were held to the work of besieging 
the British fort, and finally gave up only when Sir 
Jeffrey Amherst compelled the French commandant at 
Fort Chartres to send a message to Detroit calling ofif 
the red warriors, can have only mention here. Of 
the fighting that was done within the watershed of the 
Ohio, however, some details may be given. 

On May 18, the Indians in a great mob made a 
furious attack on the fort at Le Beuf (Waterford), 
Pennsylvania. The assault failed. At night they fired 
the wooden structure, and then danced before the gate, 
as they looked to see Ensign Price and his thirteen 
men come out to die fighting. But Price and his men 
cut their way through the rear wall and escaped to the 
woods. By a circuitous route they reached French 
Creek, and passing down arrived at Venango. 

In place of a stockaded fort they found there a heap 
of hot ashes and a few smoking logs. A party of 
Seneca Indians (the Seneca tribe only, of the Six Na- 
tions, joined Pontiac), had entered the fort professing 
friendship, and then had tomahawked all the garrison 
save Lieut. Gordon, commanding. Him they burned 
in Seneca fashion, keeping him alive for three days. 

By following the river, Price and seven of his men 
reached Fort Pitt, on May 26. Six had dropped on 
the trail through exhaustion. On the same day a sol- 
dier named Gray arrived from Presqu' Isle, (Erie. Pa.), 
with a story of the slaughter of all but himself and 
one other man of the garrison there, although the In- 
dians had promised them a safe conduct to Fort Pitt. 

A day later (May 27, 1763), the Indians were 
175 



A History of the 

prowling around Fort Pitt, killing stragglers. A dele- 
gation came to the Fort and demanded that it surren- 
der, promising, the while, a safe conduct to all within 
its walls to the settlements in Pennsylvania. They 
pretended to be friendly and anxious only to keep the 
people in the fort from the hands of Pontiac and his 
Western Indians, who, they said, were on the way. 
Capt. Ecuyer thanked them and in return warned them 
to flee quickly because, he said, an army of 6,000 men 
was coming to Fort Pitt, and 3,000 more were going 
up the lakes. 

It is an interesting fact that while the Indians were 
trying to deceive Ecuyer they were themselves de- 
ceived, and fled. They went east, instead of west, 
however, and they ravaged the frontiers, as they had 
done when incited by the French. Thus they learned 
that no army was coming to Fort Pitt, and on July 26, 
they came back to the fort. 

Shingiss (a notable leader). Turtle Heart and 
another chief were admitted to a conference, when they 
asked for it; and Shingiss made a speech which un- 
fortunately has not been preserved — unfortunately 
because it was a fierce statement of the real wrongs the 
Indians had suffered at the hands of the whites, with 
special emphasis on the supposed wrong of taking their 
hunting grounds. It was a speech to make a patriot 
wince, but Capt. Ecuyer's reply was still more painful 
to the patriot heart, for it was a lie. He said the Brit- 
ish posts were maintained in the Indian country solely 
to protect the Indians from the French. And yet, 
while he talked, there were 100 women and children 
of would be settlers, within the walls of the fort. 

176 



Mississippi Valley. 

A siege followed that is memorable for one event. 
The Indians, by creeping under the shelter of the banks 
of the streams, found a safe lodgment under the walls 
of the fort, and were able to shoot flaming arrows to 
the roofs of the fort buildings in a way that was ex- 
ceedingly dangerous to the whites. A rude fire engine 
was constructed, but only constant and most wearying 
vigilance saved the buildings from destruction; and 
finally it appeared that the garrison would be ex- 
hausted by the struggle. 

In this extremity some bright intellect planned 
relief. A flat boat, with wooden walls that were bullet 
proof, was built and mounted on rollers. A crew, well 
supplied, was placed in it, and it was then rushed 
through a gate and down a steep slope into the Mo- 
nongahela. The crew then anchored off the point 
where they could fire through their ports and rake the 
Indians concealed in little caves under the banks. 
"Whereat," as a soldier who was present says, "they 
set up the most diabolical yells I ever heard, retired 
up stream, and never again ventured so close to us" 
in daylight. The success of this, the first armored 
American warship, was manifest from the first run. 

It is estimated that 20,000 people were driven from 
their homes in Virginia by the red raiders. In Penn- 
sylvania the red fire swept eastward until the smoke 
was seen from the mountains around Carlisle. In 
Virginia a thousand riflemen were enrolled, and these 
beat back the raiders. In Pennsylvania, Col. Henry 
Bouquet, a native of Berne, Switzerland (a soldier 
of fortune), was placed in command of 500 men, the 
remains of two regiments of regular troops, and sent 

177 



A History of the 

with supplies, toward Fort Pitt. He left Carlisle on 
July 19, with what seemed a most forlorn hope. For 
the force was inadequate in number, the soldiers were 
not frontiersmen, and many of them were sick. But 
it is recorded of Bouquet that "he was enthusiastic 
in the study of his profession," and such a leader could 
not fail altogether. 

Fort Bedford and then Fort Ligonier were reached 
without mishap. The Indians about each place fled 
when Bouquet came, but it was only to gather in force 
further on. 

Leaving Ligonier on August 4, Bouquet camped 
within eighteen miles of Bushy Run. The next da)^ 
a forced march was made over a dry trail for seven- 
teen miles — a distance that was covered by i o'clock 
in the afternoon — and the tired and thirsty soldiers 
were hastening forward, hoping for rest and water 
on the shaded banks of the run, when the brush ahead 
of the advance guard began to spit flames, and in a 
few moments the whole force was surrounded by a 
whooping, merciless horde of Delawares, Shawnees 
and Mingoes. The Indians that had been foiled at 
Fort Pitt came to seek revenge on the troops of Bouquet. 

Lining up in a circle around the supplies and bag- 
gage, the little force of white men stood in their places, 
and fired back at the gun flashes of the Indians who 
kept well-hid behind rocks and trees. 

It was a most unequal conflict. The troops by 
companies charged the concealed Indians, and with the 
bayonet drove them hither and thither at every charge. 
Only a temporary relief was thus attained, however, 
for the Indians turned around and fought with as 

178 



Mississippi Valley. 

much determination as ever, the moment the pursuit 
stopped. But in spite of discouragement ; and in spite 
of fatigue, heat and thirst, the men, inspired by their 
leader, fought until night came, and then with their 
mouths as dry as ashes, they took posts as guards, or 
lay down to sleep around the wounded, who were suf- 
fering from tortures only a trifle less than the Indians 
would have inflicted at the stake. It is a story worth 
telling chiefly because of the magnificent endurance 
of these men. 

At daylight the Indians came with renewed fury, 
and then Bouquet provided a trap for them. He or- 
dered the two companies in advance to fall back hastily 
as if a retreat of the whole force was contemplated, 
while he concealed other squads where they could cover 
with their muskets the space abandoned. The Indians 
were deceived, and with yells of joy rushed in a thick 
mob after the companies that seemed to retreat. At 
the right moment the ambushed squads opened lire on 
the flanks of the mob, and then charged them with 
the bayonet. 

That work won the victory. The Indians fled 
in a panic, and Bouquet was able to reach Fort Pitt 
without further mishap. But while the Indians lost 
near sixty killed, the white force had ii6 privates 
and eight officers killed. 

The much greater loss of the whites in this vic- 
tory is worth a word aside. Consider the losses at 
Venango and Presqu' Isle; consider the losses at the 
other posts. To these add the losses (nowhere stated, 
unfortunately), that were suffered during the raids. 
It is a most important consideration. Definite figures 

179 



A History of the 

are unattainable, but Roosevelt says that "in Brad- 
dock's War the borderers are estimated to have suf- 
fered a loss of fifty souls for every Indian slain; in 
Pontiac's w^ar they had learned to defend themselves 
better, and yet the ratio is probably ten to one." In 
Lord Dunmore's v\^ar the ratio did not rise to more 
than three whites killed for every Indian life taken, 
but to sum up all the slaughter of whites, in occupy- 
ing the Mississippi Valley, it is fair to suppose the 
losses of the whites out-numbered those of the Indians, 
by at least four or five to one. The whites paid a 
frightful price for the negligence and brutal greed they 
exhibited in dealing with the Indians. The universal 
law of compensation has been written in blood from 
the Juniata to Jackson's Hole beside the Tetons. We 
will but mention the penalty the whites have paid in 
money — the annual fine, as one may say, that amounted 
in the year ending June 30, 1900, to $10,175,106.76, 
that sum being the amount expended for "Indian Af- 
fairs." 

It was Emerson who wrote an essay on the Uni- 
versal Law of Compensation, and it was Carlyle who 
said of a certain part of the great Anglo-Saxon race 
that they numbered 27,000,000, and were "mostly 
fools." The truth of this last statement is never plain- 
er than when considering the story of the Indian — un- 
less, indeed,, it be when considering what our present- 
day critics say of that dour old Scotchman. 

The relief of Fort Pitt by Bouquet, and the failure 
of Pontiac at Detroit disposed the Indians to peace, 
though peace was not made immediately. The raiders 
in Pennsylvania retired to the Muskingum. A royal 

180 



Mississippi Valley. 

proclamation was issued forbidding absolutely all 
white settlements in the Indian country; forbidding 
the purchase of Indian lands by private persons, and 
ordering that all Indian traders take out licenses and 
give bonds that they would observe certain regula- 
tions providing for honest dealing with the red men. 

Nevertheless the Indians began the war once more 
in the spring of 1764. Pontiac besieged Detroit, and 
the raiders came to the frontier homes with renewed 
fury. 

Accordingly a force was sent up the great lakes 
under Col. Bradstreet, who did nothing but allow the 
Indians to deceive him with idle promises. Another 
force, under Colonel Bouquet, marched to Fort Pitt. 
Three wily chiefs came to meet him, bringing such 
promises as had deceived Bradstreet, but Bouquet ar- 
rested them as spies, and then sent one home to tell 
the tribes that only sincerity would save them. As 
a test of their sincerity he sent two messengers through 
the wilderness to carry letters to Bradstreet, at Detroit, 
and he told the Indians that if these messengers did not 
return safely, at the end of twenty days, the two chiefs 
held as hostages would be killed. 

Then to emphasize his words, Bouquet marched 
his whole force, (1,500 men), through the wilderness 
to the Muskingum River, where he arrived near the 
middle of October, 1764. There he met the red peace- 
makers. 

Bouquet was a sincere man, and because he was 
sincere and firm, the keen-eyed Indians saw their doom, 
if they failed to obey his will. The terms he imposed 
upon them were strictly fulfilled — the promises the In- 

181 



A History of the 

dians made to him were kept to the last letter, and that 
is a most important fact in the story of the Indian. A 
clear-eyed, very bad child was the Indian of 1764 — bad 
enough to seek every advantage by indirection, and to 
revel in cruelty, but clear-eyed enough to know a man 
at a glance ; and good enough, withal, to meet sincerity 
with sincere compliance. 

The terms imposed were simple. The Indians were 
to give up all prisoners, first of all, and then send a 
deputation of chiefs, fully authorized to make a treaty 
with Sir William Johnson in the Mohawk Valley. 

The prisoners were promptly delivered, and a most 
remarkable gathering they made. For some were wild 
with joy, and others who had become true children of 
the forest, were sullen and exasperated. There were 
white wives who, with unspeakable joy, were taken in 
the arms of their husbands who had come with Bou- 
quet to find them. There were others who, with downcast 
eyes, because of half-red children, appealed for pity. 
There were white girls who were leaving red lovers 
whom they loved, and with whom they fain would 
stay, and there were white boys who watched for a 
chance, sure to come, at last, for a return to the wild 
free life of the wilderness. But all together were taken 
to Fort Pitt, and the war was ended. 

The good work of Col. Bouquet, a sincere man, 
firmly established the British power over the Indians 
in the Mississippi Valley, and thus opened the way for 
British settlers. 



182 




DANIEL ROONE. 
From an original portrait by Harding. 




XI 



CROSSING THE RANGE. 

The Origin and Character of the Home makers who first 
Passed the Alleghanies — Cumberland Gap Named — 
Work of the Ohio Company — George Croghan as an 
Explorer — Kentucky Purchased from the Iroquois — 
Washington as a Speculator in Ohio River Lands — 
Daniel Boone and His Adventures — When the "Di- 
vine Right of Self Government" v^as first Exercised 
West of the Divide — Slaves in Great Demand. 

At the end of Pontiac's war, the British colonists 
no longer feared either French or the Indians. Their 
migration across the range was therefore to grow in 
volume with an increasing ratio from the day peace 
was announced. But before relating the interesting 
facts of this migration it is well worth while to con- 
sider how it happened that such a westward move- 

i8^ 



A History of the 

ment came into existence in the first place. The fact 
is a consideration of the causes of this migration gives 
one a key to some of the most prominent characteris- 
tics of the settlers in the Mississippi Valley — and of 
their descendants. 

In any study of this matter it is learned first of all 
that the people who were found flocking to the moun- 
tain passes were for the greater part, either emigrants, 
(with little money), from the old country, (or the im- 
mediate descendants of such emigrants), and they land- 
ed in ports south of New York. They came from coun- 
tries where the land was in the possession of the gentry 
— where the possession of land, in fact, created a class 
distinction — gave the land owners social superiority. 
In the old country the emigrants had learned that the 
possession of land not only gave social elevation ; it was 
the basis of physical comfort and mental ease. But 
toil as they might, they could not hope to obtain pos- 
session of so much as a single acre in the land of their 
birth. 

Over the sea, however, in America, there was wild 
free land in breadths beyond their comprehension. It 
was to be had by any one who would take it and work 
it, and they came in ship loads to the ports of the colo- 
nies — 25,000 of them arrived in Delaware Bay, in the 
course of two years — in order to secure this land. 

They were thinking people or they would not have 
seen and comprehended the advantages connected with 
the ownership of land. They were ambitious, energetic 
and enterprising, or they never would have left their 
old homes and surroundings to migrate to a new coun- 
try. 

184 



Mississippi Valley. 

When they landed in America they showed forth 
other admirable characteristics. There were breadths of 
unoccupied land — wide breadths a plenty — east of the 
mountains, but these sturdy migrants would not take 
it. They landed in the Delaware or the Chesapeake, 
and a brief examination of the people and the condi- 
tions along shore showed them that an aristocratic 
class dominated that region — landed gentry very much 
like those left behind in the old country, even though 
there were neither dukes nor lords to be found. Under 
the gentry in Virginia were negro slaves. Under the 
gentry in Pennsylvania were a "boorish people — good 
farmers who cared more for their pigs than their own 
comfort, uniting thrift with habits that scorned educa- 
tion." That these migrants would not associate with 
either the negroes or the boorish people who scorned 
education was a matter of course. Having no means 
to buy estates it is plain that they could not have joined 
the landed gentry, but it is also a fact that they would 
not have done so even if it had been possible. For in 
Virginia the dominant people were Episcopalians; in 
Pennsylvania they were Quakers, and the migrants 
were Scotch Presbyterians who were ready to give 
reasons for the faith that was in them. Not all the mi- 
grants were Scotch Presbyterians, of course. There 
were some Huguenots and Palitinates, and many were 
without religious scruples; but the important fact is 
that these people as a whole were driven by their land 
hunger and religious peculiarities — by their ambition 
and their determination to think for themselves — away 
from the coast, where they landed, to the freedom of 
the wilds. 

185 



A History of the 

And if we look at the American born people, (men 
like Robertson and Boone), who flocked across the 
mountains, we will find that the feelings which urged 
them to seek homes in the wilderness were akin to 
those of the migrants from over the sea. 

Rightly considered, this westward movement marks 
one of the most important epochs in the development 
of the race. The migration was due to the sprouting 
belief that all men were born free and equal, and were 
endowed with inalienable rights. It was a manifesta- 
tion of the spirit that gave the world the American 
Nation. 

There was, indeed, one slight obstacle in the way 
o£ the home seekers as they toiled through the passes 
— the King's Proclamation forbidding it, and forbid- 
ding also all private purchases of lands from the In- 
dians. The real objects of this proclamation, as ex- 
plained by Lord Hillsborough, President of the Board 
of Trade, were as follows: 

"We take leave to remind your Lordships of that principle 
which was adopted by this Board, and approved and confirmed 
by his Majesty, immediately after the Treaty of Paris, viz.: 
the confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance 
from the seacoast as that those settlements should lie within 
easy reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, . . . 
and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which 
was conceived to be necessary for the preservation of the colo- 
nies in due subordination to, and dependence upon, the mother 
country. And these we apprehend to have been the two capital 
objects of His Majesty's proclamation of the 7th of October, 
1763. . . . The great object of colonizing upon the continent 
of North America has been to improve and extend the com- 
merce, navigation and manufactures of this kingdom. 
It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends 
entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession 
of their hunting grounds, and that all colonizing does in its 

186 



Mississippi Valley. 

nature, and must in its consequences, operate to the prejudice 
of that branch of commerce. . . Let the savages enjoy their 
deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry 
trade would decrease." 

It had been openly asserted in England that if the 
Colonies were relieved from the fear of Indian aggres- 
sions they "would cover the continent, become a great 
nation, manufacture their own goods, and eventually 
declare themselves independent." 

In the colonies, however, the proclamation was not 
taken seriously. It was considered as a collection of 
soft words intended to allay the irritation of the In- 
dians. Washington said of it, that it was not intended 
as a permanent law governing the territory west of 
the Alleghanies. 

Therefore, obeying the impulse of a dominant race, 
the British-Americans moved on. We can see now 
that the race progress through the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi was inevitable — not to be stopped by any earth- 
ly power. A little consideration of the history of man 
shows that the spread of a dominant race is not only 
inevitable, but that it ought to be so if man is to con- 
tinue to elevate himself. 

And yet, in spreading through the Mississippi Val- 
ley — in spreading over every part of the continent, in 
fact — the white men wronged the red men beyond the 
power of words to describe, and thereby inevitably 
injured themselves vastly more than they injured the 
red men. 

If a brief consideration be given to this matter, 
it will appear that the spread of the white men over the 
Great Valley was not necessarily in itself an injury to 
the Indian. The whites did necessarily take from the 

187 



A History of the 

Indian his hunting grounds, but enough has been said, 
already perhaps, to show that the Indian ought to have 
been kept out of hunting grounds from the earhest pos- 
sible moment. 

In short it was not in the taking of lands that the 
Indian was wronged, it was in the manner of the tak- 
ing. 

We are venturing once more on an idle speculation, 
but recalling the fact that at Gnadenhutten (and else- 
where by the Quakers), wild Indians were turned into 
peace-loving, stump-grubbing farmers, we can see now 
that the white men, if united in the project, might have 
made a Gnadenhutten of every red village on the con- 
tinent. Let this statement be considered without pre- 
judice. Bad as the Indians had become after 150 years 
association with the worst men of the white race, it was 
possible, by united and sincere efforts, even in 1764, to 
make a Gnadenhutten of every Indian village in the 
land. Because the white men were of a superior race, 
they were the natural guardians of the red men. These 
words are, perhaps, the mere prating of a sentimental- 
ist, but because the whites were of a superior race, it 
was their duty to place the red men, at whatever cost, 
in permanent homes as corn-growers. But they 
shirked their duty — they refused to take up the "white 
man's burden" — and they have been compelled to pay 
for their neglect a price in blood and treasure so great 
that words are inadequate to tell how great the price 
is. Indeed, instead of trying to settle the Indians on 
farm lands, there are records showing that punish- 
ments were provided for subjugated Indians who failed 
to bring in certain stated quantities of skins of wild 

188 



Mississippi Valley. 

animals. It is a matter worth repeated considerations, 
when we think of the inferior peoples over whom we 
are yet guardians. 

But this is not to withhold sympathy from the fron- 
tier home maker in his battles ; his sufferings were often 
heartbreaking. He was only fulfilling the destiny of 
his race, for in him the forward impulse was strongest. 
The frontiersmen were the instruments by which the 
race worked out its destiny. It was their part to meet 
and push on the red men, to endure the hardships of 
forest life, and to turn the wilderness into home lands 
for a more (if not wholly), civilized people. They 
were the advance guard sent ahead of the main army ; 
they were to be sacrificed — shot down — for the good 
of the many. How they did their duty shall now be 
told. 

Few of the explorers need be named. It was in 
1748 that Dr. Thomas Walker, ''surveyor and man of 
mark," reached the head of Cumberland River, and 
two years later he passed through the Gap. His party 
killed ''thirteen buffaloes, eight elks, fifty-three bears, 
two deer and 150 turkeys." The abundance of all 
kinds of game found is, perhaps, the most important 
feature of the story of Walker's expedition, and of 
others like it; for every frontiersman knew that these 
wild animals swarmed only where their food was 
abundant, and that their food was abundant where the 
land was rich. 

It was in 1749 that the Ohio Company of Virginia, 
the organization of capitalists already mentioned, who 
had tried to acquire a half million acres of land on the 
Ohio River for the purpose of speculation, now did 

189 



A History of the 

some work. They employed Col. Thomas Cresap, a 
frontiersman and trader living on the headwaters of 
the Potomac, to mark a trail fit for pack horses, from 
where Cumberland, Md., now stands, over the moun- 
tains to the forks of the Ohio. A friendly Indian 
named Nemacolin, who lived with Cresap, did the 
work. He blazed the trees along the route followed 
by the Indians when crossing the mountains by that 
pass; that is the Indian with a tomahawk, cut patches 
of bark from all the trees along the route. It was this 
path that was eventually opened as a road fit for 
wagons by the axemen with Braddock's army, and it 
was thereafter known as Braddock's Road. The great 
National Road, made the next century, followed this 
trail in part. 

On September i6, 1750, Christopher Gist, a not- 
able Indian trader, was commissioned by the "Ohio 
Company" to go over the range and prospect for lands 
on which they could locate their claim for 200,000 
acres. His journey took him through the central and 
southern part of the State of Ohio as far as the mouth 
of the Scioto, whence he crossed to the Kentucky side, 
went up the Licking, climbed over the divide to the 
Kentucky River, up which he traveled to the Clinch, 
and so home by the way of the New River, and the head 
of the Roanoke. As a result of his explorations, the 
Ohio Company determined to locate their claims on 
the south side of the Ohio, and Gist was sent, in April, 
1752, among the Indians to induce them to move their 
villages to the lands which the company purposed se- 
curing from them. In a dim way, this company saw the 
right method of dealing with the red men. They meant 

190 



J3P|0L|3De|d 

ino-p|Od 



S ^ -^ 7^ 




Mississippi Valley. 

to turn him from a roving to a sedentary life, for the 
purpose of trade first, of course, but ultimately that 
he might become an agriculturalist and a citizen. 

Dr. Walker, who named Cumberland Gap for the 
Duke of Cumberland, explored a part of the Kentucky 
River in 1758, as agent of a British land company, of 
which the Duke was chief patron, and he gave this 
river the name of Louisa in honor of the Duchess — a 
name that is perpetuated only by the name of the Ken- 
tucky town of Louisa. 

After this, Virginia sent Joshua Fry, Lunsford 
Lomax and James Patton, with Gist, to Logstown, 
when a treaty was made wherein the Indians agreed 
not to molest any settlements that might be made on 
the Virginia side of the Ohio. Then Gist was ordered 
to build a fort and lay out a town site on the Virginia 
side of the river, two miles below the forks, but before 
this work was accomplished, the French advent on the 
head of the river stopped all further progress toward 
settlement. 

After Pontiac's war ended, and while yet the 
French were in possession of the Illinois posts, 
George Croghan, now deputy Indian agent under Sir 
William Johnson, was sent through the country north- 
west of the Ohio River to prepare the red men for 
British domination. It was known to be a dangerous 
mission, for Pontiac was still alive and unappeased, 
and the French residents of the region naturally hated 
the British. 

The party left Fort Pitt on May 15, 1765, and 
without adventures worth noting here, passed down 
to the mouth of the Wabash River, where they arrived 

191 



A History of the 

on June 6, and camped in a fortification that Croghan 
supposed to be of Indian origin. There, at dayhght, 
on the morning of the 8th, they were attacked by a 
party of Kickapoo and other Wabash Valley 
Indians, two white men and three Indians of 
Croghan's party were killed and everybody else 
wounded (including Croghan), except two white men 
and one Indian. The Kickapoos then rushed in and 
plundered the camp. 

When told that the Iroquois would come to take 
vengeance, they excused themselves by saying that 
"the French had spirited them up," and they appeared 
to be alarmed, but they kept the plunder they had taken. 

After some discussion of the matter, the Kickapoos 
took Croghan and his party as prisoners to Vincennes, 
where "about eighty or ninety French families" were 
"settled on the east side of the river, being one of the 
finest situations that can be found," to quote one of 
Croghan's journals. They were "an idle, lazy people, 
a parcel of renegades from Canada, and much worse 
than the Indians," in Croghan's opinion. He had little 
reason to think well of them, for, before Croghan's 
eyes, they traded baubles and red paint to the Indians 
for the tools and other valuables of which Croghan 
had been robbed, including gold and silver coin. One 
trader sold a pound of vermillion paint for ten of 
Croghan's half Johannes (a gold coin worth $8.25), 
and jeered at Croghan after the trade was completed. 

However, Croghan was released, after a time, and 
was able to hold a number of important councils with 
the Indians, including one with Pontiac, who then 
agreed to keep the peace. Pontiac had raged to and 

192 




GEORGE III., KING OF ENGLAND. 
From a portrait made just before his accession to the throne (1760), 



Mississippi Valley. 

from Detroit to Ft. Chartres in a vain effort to rouse 
the Indians and French to make war again. He had 
"sent an embassy of warriors down the Mississippi, 
with an immense war-belt, with instructions to show 
it at every Indian village on the river," and to get aid 
of the French at New Orleans ; but all in vain, for the 
French had made peace with the British. It was when 
this last hope had expired that Pontiac made peace. It 
was on August 28, 1765, at Detroit, that this council 
was held. Pontiac made a speech, in which he said: 
"Father, we have all smoked out of the pipe of peace. 
It's your children's pipe, and as the war is all over, and 
the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, who has made the 
earth and everything therein, has brought us all to- 
gether * * * I declare to all nations that I had 
settled my peace with you before I came here." (N. Y. 
Colonial Mems., vii., p. 783.) In 1768 the aggres- 
sive old chief was assassinated near St. Louis by an 
Illinois Indian who had been hired by a trader named 
Williams to do the deed. The price paid was a barrel 
of rum. 

At the treaty meeting which followed the Pontiac 
war (held by Sir William Johnson, at the German 
Flats, Herkimer Co., N. Y.), the Indians proposed 
that the Alleghany River be established as a definite 
and permanent boundary between the white men and 
the red. This offer was evaded, but on October 24, 
1768, delegates from the Six Nations, the Delawares 
and the Shawnees, met at Ft. Stanwix (Rome, N. Y.), 
and here a boundary line was agreed upon. It began in 
the Ohio River at the mouth of the Tennessee, passed 
up the Ohio to Ft. Pitt, up the Alleghany to Kittan- 

193 



A History of the 

ning, and thence across to the Susquehanna. These 
Indians abandoned all claim on the land lying south 
and east of that line. The Six Nation deputies signed 
the treaty for all Indians, but, the Shawnee and Dela- 
ware chiefs, while orally agreeing to it, held a mental 
reservation in the matter that was troublesome later. 
The price paid the Indians for the cession was £ 10,430, 
7s, 6d — 200 boat loads of goods brought up the Mo- 
hawk. It was by this payment that the Indian title to 
Kentucky, a slice of Tennessee, and the Ohio water 
shed of Virginia was extinguished, save only as the 
Cherokees claimed part of that region. The Cherokees 
did not sell out until 1775, though it is worth noting 
that the Cherokees made a treaty at Hardlabor, S. C, 
on October 14, 1768, by which they ceded the lands 
between the Great Kanawha and the Ohio. 

When Pontiac's warriors came to Fort Pitt, 100 
women and children, the families of home makers, 
were within, as already noted. When this war ended 
the blue smoke was already rising serenely from the 
stick-and-mud chimneys of the cabins they had built 
at Redstone (now Brownsville, Pa.), on the Monon- 
gahela. The King's proclamation, limiting the colonial 
settlements to the slope east of the mountains, had 
ordered all settlers w'est of the mountains to return to 
the east side. The Pennsylvania legislature passed 
bills for the removal of these settlers, and sent com- 
missioners to enforce the acts. One bill provided the 
death penalty for all w^ho should fail to remove as 
ordered. These acts were passed in sincerity, and the 
commissioners tried to enforce them. But it was work 
against a law of nature, and it failed, as all such work 

194 



Mississippi Valley. 

must fail. Even the Indians interfered to keep 
white settlers west of the mountains. 

The purchase of lands by the treaty of Fort Stan- 
wix (November 5, 1768), was the first act in the 
gate-opening that let the white settlers legally across 
the mountains, to make homes in the Ohio Valley. 
A number of companies were formed, about this time, 
to acquire lands in the Ohio Valley and people them. 
Franklin was interested in one. Washington, the Lees, 
and other prominent people were in another that ab- 
sorbed the old Ohio company. Not one is worth more 
than mention here, because none of them accomplished 
anything beyond advertising the desirability of the 
lands of the Ohio Valley. Still, the agitation created 
by the application for grants evolved one practical Act 
in Council known as the Walpole Grant, by which the 
King gave, on August 14, 1772, a large tract of land 
west of the Alleghanies, which was to be erected into 
a new colony. Sir William Johnson, the Indian Agent, 
was instructed to inform the Indians that a new colony 
was to be formed in the Ohio Valley. This colony-on- 
paper (for it was never organized), is commonly called 
Vandalia. Its capital was to be located on the Great 
Kanawha. It was to be organized to give a definite 
western limit to the seaboard colonies that were already 
in the ferment which led to the War of the Revolution. 
But before the work of organization could be com- 
pleted, a plan for placating the French inhabitants of 
Canada was turned to the purpose of limiting the sea- 
board colonies. 

The French had petitioned, from time to time, for 
a restoration of their old-time laws and religious privi- 

195 



A History of the 

leges. By an act of Parliament, approved June 22, 
1774, known as the Quebec Bill, these privileges of 
law and religion were granted, and a vast region west 
of the Alleghanies was made a part of the Royal Prov- 
ince of Quebec. The Bill was to take effect in 1775, 
but the work of George Rogers Clark in the Revolu- 
tion, following on Lord Dunmore's war, to be des- 
cribed further on, ended that business. 

In the meantime (1767 and 1770), Washington 
had gone down the Ohio twice to prospect for good 
land, and with such success that he eventually acquired 
through his claims as a soldier, and by the purchase 
of other claims, no less than 32,373 acres of land in 
great plots, besides a small plot of 587 acres located 
fifteen miles below Wheeling. He had a total water 
front of sixteen miles on the Ohio, and forty miles 
on the Great Kanawha. He estimated the value of 
this land at $3.33 per acre, but it is to be noted that 
he had great trouble to keep squatters off his holdings. 

But the man whose name is best known in connec- 
tion with the movement of settlers across the Alle- 
ghanies was Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone, the fourth 
son of Squire and Sarah Boone, was born on Novem- 
ber 2, 1734, in Oley Township, Berkes County, Pa. 
The father owned 250 acres of land on Owatin Creek, 
"some eight miles southeast of the present city of Read- 
ing." (Thwaite's "Daniel Boone.") It was then a 
frontier region. In 1750 the Boones sold out their 
holdings in Pennsylvania and moved to the Yadkin 
Valley, in North Carolina, where they arrived after a 
leisurely, halting journey, in the fall of 1751. 

On their way they stopped at a small settlement 
196 



Mississippi Valley. 

made on New River, just west of the Alleghany divide, 
but well within the limits of Virginia. Some Penn- 
sylvanians had staked claims there in 1748. They had 
gone at about the time Dr. Walker was exploring the 
Cumberland Gap, and they made the first settlement 
west of the divide, though by no means west of the 
Alleghany mountain system. 

In 1755, Daniel Boone joined as a teamster, a party 
of neighbors who went up to Pennsylvania, to help 
Braddock drive the French from the forks of the Ohio. 
It was during this campaign that young Boone 
met John Finley. Finley, as a fur buyer, had been in 
the Kentucky region, and as far down the Ohio at the 
falls. His stories of the game to be found there greatly 
interested young Boone, for he was already a notable 
woodsman and hunter, and his interest was the greater 
because Finley told him that the Kentucky grounds 
were to be reached easily by following the well-known 
buffalo trail through the Cumberland Gap. Accord- 
ingly, after Boone reached home he extended his hunt- 
ing trips westward, but it was years before he went to 
Kentucky, for on reaching home he was married to a 
handsome, black-eyed Irish girl named Rebecca Bryan. 
As early as 1760, however, he had hunted on a 
branch of the Watauga, now called Boone Creek, where 
a beech tree was marked : 

D. Boon 
CillED A. Bar on 
tree 
in THE 
yEAR 

1760 

197 



V 



"> 



A History of the 

In 1 76 1 he accompanied an expedition under Capt. 
Hugh Waddell that went into the Cherokee country 
to avenge raids on the whites. In 1766 Benjamin 
Cutbirth, John Stuart, John Baker and John Ward, all 
neighbors of Boone on the Yadkin, crossed the Alle- 
ghanies on an exploring expedition, during which 
they reached the Mississippi, and this was the first 
expedition to do that of which there is any record. 
They gathered a harvest of skins, bear's oil and dried 
meat, which they sold at good prices in New Orleans. 
It was the first cargo of Kentucky produce sent down 
the Great River by British-Americans. 

In the fall of the same year Boone and William 
Hill "crossed the mountain wall, were in the valleys 
of the Holsten and the Clinch, and reached the head wa- 
ters of the West Fork of the Big Sandy," (Thwaites). 
The winter was passed at a salt lick ten miles west of 
the site of the modern town of Prestonburg, Kentucky. 

In the autumn of 1768 John Finley came to the 
Yadkin as a peddler and remained all winter with 
Boone. Boone had found game a plenty in the water 
shed of the Big Sandy, but the forest was not to his 
liking. In talking the matter over with Finley, how- 
ever, the latter proposed an expedition to the country 
further west, to be reached by a well-worn buffalo 
trail through Cumberland Gap, and after the crops had 
been planted in the spring of 1769, Boone, Finley, John 
Stuart, Joseph Holden, James Mooney and William 
Cooley, with the best outfit known to the frontier, went 
to a tributary of the Kentucky River, called Station 
Camp Creek, (Estill County, Kentucky), and built a 
camp. They were there, not as explorers, but as skin 

198 



Mississippi Valley. 

hunters. They were very successful until December 22, 
when Indians captured and robbed them, and then, 
after warning them to leave the country, set them free. 

All but Boone and Stuart left. These two who 
remained were afterwards joined by Squire Boone, a 
brother of Daniel, and Alexander Neely. Eventually, 
(February, 1770), Stuart failed to return to the Camp 
— just why is not known, — but Daniel Boone found his 
skeleton in a hollow sycamore tree five years later. He 
may have been wounded by Indians from whom he 
escaped only to die in his hiding place. His skeleton 
was identified by his powder horn. 

Being frightened by Stuart's disappearance, Neely 
went home. The Boone brothers remained until May, 
when Squire went to the settlements with their accumu- 
lated skins, and Daniel remained alone for three 
months, sleeping in caves, in the cane-brakes, or wher- 
ever a good hiding place could be found. After Squire 
returned with fresh supplies, the brothers killed another 
lot of skins which Squire carried to the settlements, 
leaving Daniel alone in the woods once more. In fact 
it was not until the spring of 1771 that Boone returned 
home. He had been for two years in the Kentucky 
wilderness, and had explored the fertile region as far 
as the falls, (Louisville). 

It was the adventurous spirit of Boone, thus shown,, 
rather than what he accomplished during these two 
years, that gave him immediate fame. For the Indians, 
as Boone's experience proved, were hostile, in spite 
of the treaty of Fort Stanwix. Boone for two years 
braved their wrath, and for months at a stretch, he 
was absolutely alone in the wilderness. It was an ad-^ 

199 



A History of the 

venture that made the strongest possible appeal to the 
daring spirits among the frontiersmen on the east slope 
of the Alleghanies. That his accounts of the number of 
wild animals he had seen stirred the people who heard 
Ihem scarcely need be said. 

fi*" Daniel Boone, it may be said here, was the typical 
frontier explorer, rather than the typical home-builder. 
He was one of many good explorers. He founded 
Boonesborough, as the agent of Col. Richard Hender- 
son, as shall be told further on, but he did not settle 
down permanently, either as a farmer or a village resi- 
dent. He moved on, and died at last in Missouri — on 
the frontier — in 1820 (September 26). As one who 
blazed the trail he deserves fame. And having found 
a biographer (John Filson), — a reporter, literally, who 
took notes at various interviews, and published the 
story in 1784 — Boone attained the recognition he de- 
served. 

The home-builders, however, were among, or on, 
the heels of the explorers, and none of them was more 
notable than James Robertson. A North Carolinian, 
he, and his parents were so poor that they had been un- 
able to send him to school. He could not read or write 
when he married, but he got a wife who would teach 
him, and in every way take part in his career. Finding 
few chances of rising in the world among the settle- 
ments of North Carolina, Robertson, early in 1770, 
took his rifle and a bag of corn, and went afoot over 
the range. 

On reaching Boone's Creek, he found one William 
Bean making a home. Bean had been of the party in 
that hunting trip when Boone "CillED A. Bar" in 

200 



Mississippi Valley. 

1760, and had liked the country so well that he had 
come with his family to make a home there. 

Robertson selected a home site not far from Bean's, 
cleared a patch, planted it with corn, attended it until 
ripe, (living, the while, on game), harvested it, and 
having thus prepared in the wilderness, sufficient food 
for a small party of friends, as well as for his own fami- 
ly, he stored it away and went to his home in North 
Carolina. The next spring, March, 1 77 1 , he came back 
to the Watauga with a party that numbered eighty men, 
women and children— sixteen families. These people 
were going into the wilderness, trusting in the corn 
Robertson had stored, and in their rifles, for their food, 
until another crop could be harvested. They were look- 
ing for no other neighbor than William Bean, already 
there, but as they descended the western side of the 
range, they found ten cabins scattered along the stream, 
with men swinging the axe in the forest round about, 
or planting corn, while the women sang songs over 
their house work, and the children played at the work 
of clearing the land by gathering brush and building 
fires. A party had come from Fairfax County, Vir- 
ginia, and seldom have home-builders been more joy- 
fully surprised than those under Robertson. 

This settlement was made near where Elizabeth- 
town, Carter County, Tenn., now stands. Robert- 
son's house stood near the head of the long island 
found there in the Watauga. Though not the first 
west of the divide, by many years, it was one of the 
most important in the history of the valley. 

These pioneers had come to make homes about 300 
miles from the "settlements." They supposed they were 

201 



A History of the 

yet in Virginia, but when the Virginia Hne was sur- 
veyed out by Anthony Bledsoe, in 177 1, they found 
themselves in a legal no-man's land. For North Caro- 
lina was then in a state of anarchy, owing to the re- 
volt of the people against Governor Tryon, and they 
were beyond the bounds of the lands bought of the 
Indians at Fort Stanwix. 

Something of the story of this No-Man's settle- 
ment must be told. The settlers soon found frontier 
desperadoes coming over the range — men who fled 
from the old settlements to escape the penalty of crime. 

Loving order and hating anarchy, the settlers got 
together and exercised the "divine right of self-govern- 
ment." This right was exercised for four years be- 
fore the Declaration of Independence, In 1772 they 
held a convention, signed articles of association for 
good government, and elected thirteen commissioners 
to enforce these self-made laws — "the first written 
compact for civil government west of the Alleghanies." 
It was an efficient government, too, in spite of the 
fact that it had no legal existence. It was good, that 
is to say, because the men who governed were entirely 
sincere in their desire to promote the public welfare, 
and they did not mistake selfish or private ends for the 
public good. To secure order they regarded justice, 
but not the forms found necessary in older commu- 
nities. A horse thief, for instance, was hanged four 
days after his arrest. Enough time was taken to defi- 
nitely ascertain the facts, but no time was wasted, 
once the facts were learned. This self-organized gov- 
ernment, being honestly administered, preserved order 
and compelled justice in this community in spite of 

202 



Mississippi Valley. 

criminals and vagabonds that fled to the mountains 
from the alongshore settlements. The love of order 
shown by these frontier home-builders has been deemed 
worthyof thehighestpraise. No one has ever denied the 
praise due, and no one is likely to do so. But it may 
be worth while pointing out to the lynch-law loving 
people of the United States that the praise given to 
Robertson, Sevier and Campbell has been ill-considered 
in that it was unmodified. Preserving order by lynch 
law was praiseworthy only because it was the only 
resource of the order-loving frontiersmen. Such a use 
of the rifle or halter was a frightful necessity, and it 
carried in its wake the long line of disgraceful outrages 
on human rights that have blackened the history of 
the Nation since that time. Let it be repeated for the 
sake of emphasis that the Americans are the only nation 
of lynchers, because they were obliged, during the Rev- 
olution, and at times on the frontier, to disregard the 
forms of Law in the search for Justice; they thus ac- 
quired the lynching habit. It is because of the success 
of the Deckhard-rifle government of the early days 
that wc now see mobs of enraged men lynching sup- 
posed offenders in the midst of communities where the 
laws might be enforced in orderly fashion. 

It is most important to observe that even when an 
innocent man is lynched the victim is less to be pitied 
than the lynchers. For the degradation they inflict 
upon themselves and the comunity is far worse than 
death. 

The Watauga people on learning that they were 
beyond the limits of Virginia, themselves made a treaty 
with the Cherokees by which they leased the lands they 

203 



A History of the 

occupied, thereby evading the king's proclamation, for- 
bidding the private purchase of Indian lands. But on 
March 17, 1775, when Henderson bought his Transyl- 
vania tract of the Cherokees, the Watauga people made 
another treaty, and bought their tract, paying £2,000 
in goods for it. It was during those treaty-making 
days that the leading Cherokee chief, Oconostota, spoke 
of the Kentucky region as a "dark and bloody ground," 
and another chief said to Boone: 

"Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I be- 
lieve you will have much trouble in settling it," (Imlay, 
p. 361). 

In 1770 Ebenezer, Silas, and Jonathan Zane came 
to Wheeling Creek, and where the city of Wheeling 
now stands, made a "tomahawk claim." Blazing a tree 
they marked on it, (engraved on it with a knife), the 
extent of land claimed, with its river boundary. There 
was no law authorizing such an "entry" of land, but 
it was a method usually (not always), recognized by 
the home makers, and such claims were commonly made 
valid by legal process afterwards. The Zane claim 
was a fine townsite, for to this day it is at the head 
of deep water navigation on the Ohio. The Zanes 
were pioneers on that part of the river, and Zanesville, 
Ohio, perpetuates their memory. 

On October 18, 1770, at Lochabar, the Cherokees 
signed a treaty locating the Indian boundary line be- 
tween a spot on the south branch of the Holston, six 
miles east of Long Island, and the mouth of the Kana- 
wha, a confirmation of the treaty of 1768. Thereafter 
the Virginia Legislature offered every actual settler on 
the western lands, 400 acres of land free, save for the 

204 



Mississippi Valley. 

expense of registering the claim, with the privilege of 
buying i,ooo acres adjoining it, at a price but little 
above the cost of surveying the claim and filing the 
papers. 

About this time good inducements were offered to 
people who would emigrate to the British territory 
on the lower Mississippi between Natchez and the Man- 
chac Bayou. To this region went many people, includ- 
ing not a few New Englanders. They usually passed 
the Alleghanies in companies to the head waters of 
the Tennessee, where they usually arrived early in the 
spring. On the Holston or the Clinch they squatted 
down and passed the summer in raising corn, hunting 
and building boats. When the corn was harvested they 
went afloat with their families and corn; braved the 
terrors of the Boiling Pot, the Suck and the Muscle 
Shoals; fought the Indians as the occasion required; 
and finally reached the promised land. These were the 
first house boatmen of the Great Valley, properly so 
called. The village of Boatyard, in Sullivan County, 
Tenn., got its name from the fact that it was the point 
from which most of these voyagers took their depar- 
ture. 

In 1773 General Lyman, of Connecticut, and some 
military friends, laid out several additions to the old 
French settlement at Natchez, and to that point no less 
than 400 families emigrated during the year named, 
passing down the Ohio in flat boats, while an unre- 
corded host traveled by way of Boatyard. 

In February, 1764, Capt. George Johnson arrived 
at Pensacola to take possession of the Territory which 
had been acquired by the treaty with France. He 

205 



A History of the 

soon sent detachments of soldiers up the Mississippi 
to Baton Rouge and Natchez. A fort was built on the 
Bayou Manchac, a short distance from the Missis- 
sippi, and named Fort Bute, in honor of the Prime 
Minister. Meantime, on February 27, Major Loftus 
and a force of 400 men were sent up the river in ten 
barges rowed by sixteen oars each, to take command 
of the Illinois country, with head quarters at Fort 
Chartres. At the end of three weeks the force was 
toiling around the base of the bluff where Fort Adams 
landing is now found, (ten miles above the mouth 
of the Red River), when a host of Tunica or Yazoo 
Indians attacked them, and inflicted such severe loss 
that the force turned down the river, abandoning the 
enterprise. 

On securing peaceable possession of the territory 
along the lower Mississippi, the British first of all 
opened a smuggling trade with the people of New 
Orleans. Fort Bute was built for a smuggling sta- 
tion, no doubt. Trade flourished so well there that 
when the Spanish came into power at New Orleans 
they built a fort opposite and about 400 yards from 
Fort Bute as a check on the smugglers, though with- 
out materially hurting the trade. 

The slave trade was the most important branch 
of the business. The slavers of Newport, Rhode 
Island, competed with those from Bristol, London 
and Liverpool, in supplying the demand for ignorant 
black laborers. Moreover a demand for slaves grew 
up in the British territory. It is a notable fact that 
the pioneers of the Ohio watershed hewed their homes 
out of the solid green woods with their own strong 

206 



Mississippi Valley. 

arms, while the lands on the lower Mississippi were 
developed chiefly by slave labor. The emigrants who 
made homes below Natchez appear to have been 
wealthier, as a class, than those locating in Kentucky. 
Among the old land grants of the time, yet to be 
found on file in the Natchez district land office, 
(Washington, Miss.), is one of 25,000 acres to Amos 
Ogden, dated October 2y, 1772. Another for 20,000 
acres was granted to Thaddeus Lyman, of Connecti- 
cut. Many others of varying size are to be seen. 

These people cultivated sugar cane and cotton, 
and lived such quiet lives that no record of their 
doings is found in history, save only that when the 
Atlantic colonies revolted under the oppression of the 
British Government, they remained loyal to the King, 
but were not sufficiently numerous or aggressive to 
take any material part in the struggle. 

Fort Chartres was surrendered by the Command- 
ant, (St. Ange), early in 1765, to Captain Sterling, 
who came by the way of Detroit. It was then, and 
continued to be, the head post of all the western ter- 
ritory wliile the British ruled there. 

Meantime many surveyors came into the Ohio 
Valley, among whom none was more notable than 
Capt. Thomas Bullitt. Bullitt laid out a town, 
(1773), where Charleston, West Virginia, now stands 
— an excellent location because at the head of the 
deep-water navigation of the Great Kanawha. Then 
he went to the falls of the Ohio, and in August laid 
out a townsite where Louisville, Ky., has since de- 
veloped. The first house was built on this site by 
John Cowan in 1774. 

207 



A History of the 

In 1773 James, George and Robert McAfee, with 
Hancock Taylor, went to the Kentucky River, and on 
July 16, surveyed a plot of 600 acres where Frank- 
fort now stands. In 1774 James Harrod with a 
party of forty men went to the spot where Harrods- 
burg is found, and beginning on June 16, built 
a log house — the first house of any kind erected in 
Kentucky. They also planted corn — made a corn- 
patch claim — and that was a claim no one would 
dispute. During that season the woods were full 
of homeseekers, speculators and surveyors, but an- 
other Indian war was to interrupt their work, and to 
that the next chapter shall be given. 




208 




SIMON KENTON. 



The companion of Boone in many of his enterprises. A portrait 
from life, by Morgan. 




XII 

LORD DUNMORE'S WAR. 

An unfair Distribution of Goods was one Cause of the 
Trouble — Men who Delighted in Murder and Theft 
— Robbed Soldiers and White Home Makers as well 
as Indians — Desired an Indian War as an aid in Set- 
tling a Colony's Boundary — An Official Letter that 
Turned the White Desperadoes Loose on the In- 
dians — The Battle of Point Pleasant — The True 
Story of the Famous Speech of Logan. 



The brief and decisive conflict known as Lord 
Dunmore's war was brought on partly by the heedless 
ignorance of the Indian ways which the whites have 
always displayed, and partly by the devilish depravity 
of some of the white men on the frontier. At the 
treaty of Fort Stamvix the whites paid $50,000 to 

209 



A History of the 

the Indians for the lands on the southerly side of the 
Ohio River as far as the Tennessee. The goods were 
delivered to the representative chiefs gathered at Fort; 
Stanwix. The Six Nations chiefs so far dominated 
at that treaty that they signed it for the Delawares 
and Shawnees, and it was therefore but natural that 
they should dominate in sharing the goods received 
for the land. To the Delaware and Shawnee chiefs 
a small portion was given and they went away partly 
satisfied. When they reached their homes in the Ohio 
country with their attenuated share of the goods they 
divided with their immediate relatives and friends. 
The masses of the Delawares and Shawnees did not 
get so much as a smell of the Fort Stanwix rum, 
or more than a long range look at the arms, 
tools and good cloths dealt out there. The lands, 
where the buffalo and the deer ranged in herds al- 
most as tame as the white men's oxen, had been sold ; 
the white man would soon kill off all that game and 
make farms of the lands, and not one glass bead were 
the masses of these Indians to get in return. 

The thought of it was maddening. Worse yet, 
the white man, having spread to the Tennessee, would 
cross the Ohio as he had crossed the Alleghanies. 
The Indian foresaw that event very clearly, and even 
the chiefs who had been bribed at Fort Stanwix soon 
realized that they had resigned a lasting heritage for 
goods that, at best, were soon worn out and lost. It 
was in this kind of bargaining that the whites were 
heedless. 

Following the Zanes to Wheeling came many peo- 
ple, of whom the majority were the homemakers whom 

2IO 



Mississippi Valley. 

we cannot sufficiently honor. But along with these 
came others whom we cannot sufficiently detest. In 
our later history, when our frontier was far be- 
yond the Mississippi, the existence of frontier des- 
peradoes was well known, and vigilance committees 
were necessary, perhaps, to rid the fair earth of their 
depraved presence. The existence of this class, when 
the Ohio country was the frontier, seems not to be 
so well known, but they were there in force. They 
were men who sought the frontier because govern- 
ment among the whites there was about as loose as 
among the Indians at all times. They not only robbed 
the white homemakers, but they even formed wide- 
spread organizations for that purpose. They were 
so bold, in fact, that they would rob a Government 
expedition in the wilderness. When in 1785 General 
Butler went down the Ohio river with a force of 
national soldiers to establish posts and make a treaty, 
these desperadoes robbed the expedition. 

"I find we are infested by scoundrels more unruly 
and unprincipled than the savages, and who wish to 
frustrate the treaty," wrote Butler in his journal. 

They were men who delighted in theft and murder, 
and who thrived best when there was open war be- 
tween the whites and the Indians. But while many 
of them were lynched for stealing horses from white 
men, their disregard of Indian rights was considered 
very lightly by the homemaker who had suffered or 
seen his neighbor suffer from Indian raids. 

Early in 1774 Virginia's claim to the land in 
the forks of the Ohio added to the trouble. Dr. John 
Connelly came to Fort Pitt, (then grown to be quite 

211 



A History of the 

a settlement), and as a representative of Lord Dun- 
more, governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation 
calling the people there and at Redstone to meet at 
Fort Pitt and organize themselves as Virginia militia. 
Connelly was arrested by Arthur St. Clair, who rep- 
resented Pennsylvania, but a mob gathered in answer 
to the proclamation, and after drinking freely, fired 
at an Indian village across the Alleghany. 

When Connelly was released, (on bail), he de- 
termined to precipitate a war with the Indians because 
such a war would give excuse for Virginia's governor 
to call out all the militia, when, with an overwhelming 
force, he could settle the disputed boundary. To this 
end, on April 21, 1774, Connelly wrote a circular 
letter to the white settlers down the Ohio, warning them 
to prepare for a Shawnee outbreak. 

Coming from a man set in authority, though by 
unrighteous means, this letter was sufficient for the 
purpose intended. The peaceable homemakers fled 
by thousands to Fort Pitt and Redstone for safety. 
Daniel Boone ranged through Kentucky and warned 
the people there to fly through the Cumberland Gap. 

But the desperadoes did not flee immediately. In- 
stead of that they sought for scalps, knowing that the 
Indians were not expecting trouble, and that attacks 
could be made in safety on the unsuspicious. 

It was in vain that the trader, George Croghan, 
then living near Fort Pitt, gave warning. "There is 
too great a spirit in the frontier people for killing 
Indians, and if the assembly gives in to that spirit, no 
doubt they will soon have a general rupture," instead 
of a conflict with the Shawnees merely, he said. 

212 



Mississippi Valley. 

A copy of Connelly's letter reached the Zane set- 
tlement at Wheeling, and fell into the hands of Mi- 
chael Cresap. This Cresap was a son of Col. Thomas 
Cresap, the "vagrant Yorkshire man" previously men- 
tioned as a settler in Western Maryland. Young 
Michael had been trained on the frontier, and had been 
a trader, like his father ; but he had become bankrupt, 
and was now on the Ohio, hoping to recruit his for- 
tunes by land speculations. To Cresap the letter of 
Connelly was a sufficient warrant for any deed of 
blood. According to George Rogers Clark, who was 
present, "the war post was planted, a council called, 
the letter read, the ceremonies used by the Indians 
on so important an occasion acted, and war was for- 
mally declared." 

These civilized w^iite men, before going out to kill 
Indians, went through with the ceremonies used by 
Indians. They circled around the war post, and each 
struck his tomahawk into it, while all gave the war 
whoop repeatedly. 

Clark adds : "The same evening two scalps were 
brought into camp." The story of these two scalps 
is interesting. Word reached the settlement that a 
canoe with two or three Indians in it was coming down 
the Ohio. Cresap gathered a party and started up the 
river in a canoe to meet them, sending another party 
to lie in ambush in the weeds of the river bank, mean- 
time. 

This canoe contained a white man named Ste- 
vens, a friendly Delaware and a friendly Shawnee, all 
in the employ of a Pittsburg trader named Butler, 
They were coming down the river to get some furs 

213 



A History of the 

belonging to their employer, which had been lost by 
other employees of the trader in a brawl with a party 
of Cherokees some days earlier. 

On seeing Cresap's canoe, Stevens thought from 
the way it was handled that it contained the party of 
Cherokees that had made trouble on the former occa- 
sion, and he steered for the bank. This brought his 
canoe within range of the men Cresap had placed in 
ambush, and they, although they could see that Ste- 
phens was a white man, shot the two Indians dead. 

These Indians were murdered on April 26, 1774. 
On the 27th, (one account says the 26th), a man 
named McMahon brought word to Cresap that four- 
teen Indians had passed down the river. Cresap, with 
a party of fifteen, pursued and overtook them at Grave 
Creek. Having heard of the aggression of Cresap the 
day before, the Indians, when Cresap opened fire, re- 
turned it, and then they fled into the woods, leaving 
one of their party dead. It appears that others were 
mortally wounded. Cresap brought but one scalp to 
Wheeling, but the Indians said afterward that "sev- 
eral" were killed. George Rogers Clark, then a youth 
of twenty-one, but afterwards a noted military officer 
of the frontier, was with Cresap. In after years Clark 
tried to excuse this attack by saying that these Indians 
acted in a suspicious manner when going down the 
river, — that is, they passed on the further side of an 
island in order to keep clear of the whites; and he 
adds that "we found a considerable quantity of ammu- 
nition and other warlike stores," in their canoe when 
they fled. What Cresap actually did find was "six- 
teen kegs of rum, two saddles and some bridles," — and 

214 



Mississippi Valley. 

nothing more. The idea that Indians would leave am- 
munition behind on such an occasion is pure nonsense. 
But even if they had been supplied with enough to 
leave some behind, the fact would have shown only 
that they were going hunting. 

On returning to Wheeling, Cresap organized a 
company to go up the river and attack an Indian vil- 
lage, under the famous chief Logan, at the mouth of 
Yellow Creek, opposite a trading station belonging 
to a man named Joshua Baker. The company marched 
five miles, and then abandoned the plan for reasons 
not fully known. Clark's statement that these men 
"argued the impropriety" of the attack, and abandoned 
it on humane grounds, is unbelievable. They were 
frontier toughs, and it is likely that the revulsion of 
feeling often seen in such characters — a panic of fear 
following murderous deeds — came upon them. At 
any rate Cresap and more than half of the gang imme- 
diately fled to safety at Redstone, on the Monongahela. 
A few continued on to Baker's, being determined to 
slaughter the red people at all hazards. A man named 
Daniel C. Greathouse now took the lead, and gathered 
a gang of thirty-two. On April 30, he went across to 
Yellow Creek alone, pretending friendship for, but 
really to count, the Indians. He found them too nu- 
merous even for a night attack, although thirty-two 
white men had been induced by love of blood and the 
hope of plunder to make the attack. 

While he was still among the Indians a friendly 
squaw, (a relative of Chief Logan), told Greathouse 
that her people had heard of the deeds of Cresap, and 
were meditating revenge. She advised him to leave, 

215 



A History of the 

and he did so, after inviting, as he left, a considerable 
number of Indians to cross to Baker's and get some 
rum as a treat. 

Accordingly several Indians did cross to Baker's. 
The accounts vary as to the number, but it appears 
that four red men, three squaws and a little girl w^ent. 
Definite statements are made that one of the squaws 
was Logan's mother, that another squaw, (one who 
carried the little girl), was his sister, and that one of 
the red men was his brother. Two Indians got drunk, 
and two refused to drink, but these two were induced 
to shoot at a mark, after the other two were helpless. 

When the Indians had fired their guns, and were 
thus incapable of defending themselves, the thirty-two 
white men attacked and slaughtered the party all but 
the child. The man who killed Logan's sister boasted 
that he shot her at a range of six feet. He was then 
going to "dash out the child's brains," but on seeing 
the little thing fall with her mother, "felt some re- 
morse," and desisted. The Indians over at Yellow 
Creek, on hearing the reports of guns, sent a canoe 
with five warriors to learn why the guns were fired. 
These were ambushed and four, (or perhaps but two), 
were killed, while another was wounded. 

It was during these days that John Heckwelder and 
David Zeisberger, Moravian missionaries, animated 
by a feeling which frontier writers have ever since, 
with lofty contempt, called "Quaker sentiment," were 
teaching the Ohio Indians to grub stumps and dig the 
ground and plant corn, and adopt a new religion — they 
were building Gnadenhutten, of which something more 
shall be told. 

216 



Mississippi Valley. 

Logan had been the friend of the whites, but now 
the red blood in his veins boiled. Three separate raids 
were made by parties under him into the Monongahela 
valley. In the first of these he alone took thirteen 
scalps. What other raiders did is told only in general 
terms. It was a war on the Virginians, and the whole 
Virginia frontier blazed, and ran red with blood, the 
innocents suffering, as always, for the crimes of des- 
peradoes, who sneaked away to safety when the danger 
became great. But when Logan took a prisoner, as 
happened on one raid, he saved the man from the stake 
at the risk of his own life. 

But the story of the white treachery is not yet com- 
plete. The traders then among the Indians fled for 
their lives and were helped from the country by per- 
sonal friends among the red men. Some of these 
friendly Indians went as far as Fort Pitt with the tra- 
ders. And while these friendly Indians were at Fort 
Pitt, Connelly tried to imprison them, but Croghan, 
the trader, foiled him. Then finding that they were 
getting away, Connelly sent men who waylaid and 
shot three of them from ambush. 

An old account says that "the character developed'* 
by Connelly on this occasion was such as to draw down 
"the reproof of Lord Dartmouth." 

The Ohio Indians had been restless for months. 
They had been expecting large quantities of goods in 
payment for lands that were to be organized as the 
colony of Vandalia, and had been disappointed. They 
were angered because they had been driven from the 
lands within the forks of the Ohio. They were alarmed 
and angered by the influx of whites that had followed 

217 



A History of the 

the treaty of Fort Stanwix. The devihsh work of Con- 
nelly, Cresap and Greathouse came just at the right 
time to rouse them to the point where almost to a man 
they would dig up the hatchet, as Logan had done. 

To meet the overwhelming red force thus turned 
loose on the Virginia frontier. Gen. Andrew Lewis, 
with 1,100 or 1,200 men (of whom fifty came from the 
Watauga settlement, under Capt. Evan Shelby), 
marched from Virginia over the range to and down 
the Kanawha. Lord Dunmore himself, with another 
force, announced that he would join Lewis at this 
point, and the united forces were then to cross the 
Ohio, and lay desolate the Indian villages. 

When Lewis reached the Ohio, on October 9, 1774, 
however. Lord Dunmore was nowhere near. Instead 
of Dunmore came Cornstalk, the Shawanese, with 
1,000 warriors, to fight these white men on their own 
ground. Cornstalk had learned Dunmore's plan of 
bringing the Virginians in two bodies to unite on the 
Ohio, and, with admirable tactics, determined to attack 
and destroy the smaller force first. The Indians knew 
all they needed to know, as they crossed the Ohio above 
the Kanawha, about the position of the Virginians. 
The Virginians knew nothing of the coming of the 
Indians. 

At four o' clock next morning, October 10, the In- 
dians came gliding through the woods to surprise the 
white man's camp, and they would have succeeded, but 
for the lack of discipline in the camp ! The General had 
ordered the poorest of the cattle, driven along to supply 
the men with beef, to be killed and served. Men who 
didn't like this beef left camp without permission, to 

218 



Mississippi Valley. 

go and kill game. Several men were going out hunting 
in pairs, that morning, before daylight. One pair, 
whose names were Mooney and Hickman, met the In- 
dians about a mile from camp, and were fired on. 
Hickman was killed. At about the same time James 
Robertson and another Watuga man met the Indians, 
but both of these escaped, and with Mooney ran to 
camp. 

It was a camp of frontiersmen. They were asleep, 
but the shouts of the hunters and the rolling of drums 
brought them to their feet, gun in hand. And leaping 
behind trees and logs they were instantly ready for the 
conflict. 

It began in the dusk of morning. The commanding 
general thought only a scouting party had been seen, 
and sent out a detachment with two scouts leading the 
way — two to serve as a sacrifice that the men might 
not be surprised. The two were soon killed. The at- 
tack on the detachment soon followed. Reinforcements 
came swiftly to support them, but the Indians took 
position on a commanding piece of ground, and be- 
fore the sunlight brightened the tops of the trees, 
the two hosts were spread out in lines more than a mile 
long, facing each other at a range that never exceeded 
twenty yards. They crouched behind trees, and look- 
ing up or down the line, fired at glimpses of white or 
red flesh, or coon skin caps or disordered plumes. They 
leaped from shelter, and with jeers and taunts invited 
assault, only that the assaulters might be decoyed into 
exposing themselves to those lying in wait. Indians 
were never more aggressive in open battle. They re- 
peatedly called the whites the sons of female dogs, and 

219 



A History uf the 

shouted "why don't you whistle now?" (referring to 
the fifes), and "we'll learn you to shoot." They even 
charged on the whites, singly and in squads, and with 
knife and tomahawk, fought it out, hand to hand, man 
fashion. Many men with mortal wounds fought on 
until death froze the look of hate on their faces. 

And through it all old Cornstalk raged up and 
down his line, shouting in a voice heard above the roar 
of guns : 

"Be strong! Be strong!" 



■<-»^^rfr,^7"jt^ A 




Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison's Residence. 
(From a Contemporary Print.) 

They were strong. Indians never were braver. 
Here was the best fight ever made by our red men. 
Two white colonels were killed and one wounded. The 
whites became discouraged under the prolonged as- 
saults of the red men. As the sun went down defeat 
stared them in the face. 

But when they would have wavered Gen. Lewis 
sent Capt. Evan Shelby, with his Watauga men, under 
the bank of the Kanawha to a ravine, through which 

220 




MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 
From an original portrait by Lambdin 



Mississippi Valley. 

they were able to flank and get in rear of the Indians. 
And then when Shelby opened fire there, the Indians 
fled in spite of the storming Cornstalk. 

The white men lost seventy-five killed and 140 
wounded. The Indians lost only thirty-three killed, so 
far as known, but they were disheartened. 

Among the men who took part in this fight was one 
Benjamin Harrison, whose name is not unknown to 
American history. He was a captain under Lewis. 
Isaac Shelby, afterward Governor of Kentucky, was 
a lieutenant of the company of Capt. Evan Shelby, his 
father. James Robertson was a sergeant in this com- 
pany, and all its members came from the Watauga 
country. 

Lord Dunmore had taken his force down the Ohio 
to the Hockhocking River, where he built a wooden 
fort. Thence, after Lewis won the battle of Point 
Pleasant (as the fight at the mouth of the Kanawha 
was called), Dunmore marched to the Scioto, camping 
on Sippo Creek, about eight miles from the modern 
town of Westfall, O. There he met Cornstalk and 
made peace. 

Cornstalk, with all his eloquence, strove to rouse 
the Indians to another battle. He taunted and im- 
plored, and finally proposed that they kill their women 
and children, and then fight until they themselves died 
free, rather than yield before the advancing whites; 
but nothing could move them. With the feeling that 
he was the chief of a band of cowards, he met Dun- 
more. He accepted Dunmore's terms, but he did it 
"with words and bearing that roused the admiration 
even of the Indian haters among the whites." 

221 



A History of the 

To this conference Logan refused to come. He 
"disdained to be seen among the supphants." But he 
was wilHng, for the sake of his people, that peace 
should be made. John Gibson, an interpreter with 
Lord Dunmore (Gibson was a general in the war of 
the Revolution), was sent to the Indians, at their re- 
quest, during the negotiations. Logan met Gibson, 
took him a little away from the other Lidians, sat 
down among the bushes near the camp, and there, ''af- 
ter shedding abundant tears," dictated the message that 
is one of the most striking outbursts of red oratory 
known to the annals of the race : 

"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he en- 
tered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; 
if ever he came cold and hungry, and he clothed him 
not. During the course of the last long and bloody 
war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for 
peace. Such was- my love for the whites that my 
countrymen pointed as they passed and said, 'Logan is 
the friend of the white men.' I had even thought to 
have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. 
Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, murdered 
all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women 
or children. There runs not a drop of my blood in 
the veins of any living creature. This called on me 
for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. 
I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country 
I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a 
thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never 
felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. 
Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one." 



222 




•wtS*"*-^ 










HKN'JAMIN FRANKLIN. 
From a portrait published in the " Portfolio " in i8i8. 




XIII 



THE HOME MAKERS IN KENTUCKY. 

The Story of Pennsylvania and Boonesborough — The 
Frontier Forts and Frontier Houses Described — The 
Old Fashioned Log-RolHng and Other Bees — The 
Deckhard Rifle — Frontier Clothing — Contrast Be- 
tween the Dominant People of Louisiana and Those 
of the Ohio Watershed — A Government Established 
at Boonesborough. 

When Lord Dunmore dictated peace to the Indians 
on the bank of the Scioto, he opened wide the road for 
the home-seekers who had thronged to the passes of 
the Alleghanies. In cowing the Indians he had 
strengthened Virginia's claim to lands west of the 
mountains far more than the Quebec Bill had injured 
it. The story of the home-makers who came to the wil- 
derness, after this war ended, is, therefore, now to be 
told. 

223 



A History of the 

And it may be observed that no chapter of Ameri- 
can history is better worth the attention of young 
Americans than this, for these home-builders were em- 
phatically men who could and would zvork — the men 
after God's own heart, who had learned "the infinite 
conjugation of the verb to do.'' 

Winsor notes in his "Westward Movement" that 
25,000 Scotch-Irish Presbyterians arrived in the Del- 
aware from 1 77 1 to 1773, and he adds that such of 
this element as came to the frontier had no better use 
for an Indian than to make of him a target for their 
rifles. Any study of the history of the region shows 
that settlers of the Ohio Valley were of Protestant 
extraction, and to a large extent Presbyterians. It is 
easy to see, now, that their kind of Presbyterianism, 
and their other isms, were not like modern views of 
Christianity. It is a matter worth consideration, be- 
cause, as Carlyle points out, a man's real creed, the one 
by which he lives, is the most important fact about him. 
But if these home-seekers were not men who obeyed 
the Sermon on the Mount, it p;-omotes one's optimism 
to note that they were distinctly better men than the 
people who came to Virginia in 1609. They did not 
profess one thing and do another. They might and 
they did shoot the red men, but they did not preface 
the killing by publishing drivel about coming to the 
frontier "to recover out of the arms of the Devil a num- 
ber of poore and miserable soules." 

In spite of their professions, the Virginians of 1609 
had "no talk, no hope, no work, but to dig gold, re- 
fine gold, loade gold." The emigrant to the Ohio River 
frontier of Virginia had "no talk, no hope, no work" 

224 



Mississippi Valley. 

but to make a home ; and that was the pubhc profession 
as well as the creed of his heart that he expressed in 
his daily life. "God never intended this fair land to 
remain a wilderness," was his oral and written creed, 
and the one under which he acted. Church rites and 
ceremonies received very little attention during the 
days when the "boom was on." 

The home-makers came to the frontier usually in 
small companies, but sometimes in single families. In- 
dividual men also came. They selected the bottom 
lands and low ridges covered over with giant walnuts, 
maples, oaks, sycamore, shell-bark hickory and other 
trees known to grow on rich soil, until all readily 
reached lands of the kind were taken up. The beech 
grove lands were held in less esteem. 

Consider as a sample, and the best one of many such 
settlements, the founders of Boonesborough. During 
the years that Daniel Boone was going to and fro be- 
tween the hunting grounds of Kentucky and his home 
on the Yadkin, he was very well acquainted with Col. 
Richard Henderson, "one of the principal judges in 
North Carolina, a scholarly, talented man, eminent in 
the legal profession," (Thwaite's "Boone"). Boone's 
stories of the game and other evidences of the fertility 
of the Kentucky soil greatly interested Col. Henderson, 
and he eventually resolved to establish a colony in the 
new country. When the company was organized they 
adopted Transylvania as the name of the colony. After 
some delays, the chief of which was due to Lord Dun- 
more's war, a grand council was held (March, 1775,) 
at Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga, with i ,200 Cher- 
okees, who were gathered there by Daniel Boone, as 

225 



A History of the 

the agent of the Transylvania Company. When there, 
the Cherokees, "for $50,000 worth of cloths, clothing, 
utensils, ornaments and fire arms," ceded to Henderson 
"all the country lying between the Kentucky and Cum- 
berland Rivers ; also a path of approach from the east, 
through Powell's Valley." 

To show how far such bargains benefited the In- 
dians, Thwaites points out that the goods in bulk 
"filled a large cabin." When distributed "there was 
but little for each warrior, and great dissatisfaction 
arose. One Cherokee, whose portion was a shirt, de- 
clared that in one day, upon this land, he could have 
killed deer enough to buy such a garment," and yet the 
chiefs had given the land away for all time for such a 
trifling return. It "seemed to him a bad bargain." 

Boone, with near thirty woodmen, was sent from 
the treaty grounds to clear a path to a spot on the Ken- 
tucky River. The trail thus made entered Kentucky 
by the Cumberland Gap, and came to be, at one time, 
the chief route south of the Ohio River. It was, in fact, 
traveled by more people, in war times, than the Ohio 
was. It was called the Wilderness Road. 

As Boone's trail-making party traveled through the 
woods the rougher obstructions were cleared away in 
order to make a passable pack-horse route for others 
who were to come. At night the party slept without 
sentries, a fact that shows better than any other the 
intrepidity of their hearts. But one morning a band of 
Indians charged the camp at daylight, killed a negro 
slave (a few slaves came thus early to blight the land) 
and Capt. Twitty, besides wounding Felix Walker. 
Then the whites rallied and beat off the Indians, and 

226 



Mississippi Valley. 

they kept on to the site selected for Boonesborough, 
in spite of another attack, when two men were killed. 

The site selected, (Big Lick, just below the mouth 
of Otter Creek), was reached April 6. "The site was 
a plain on the south side of the Kentucky." As the par- 
ty entered the natural opening they startled a herd of 
200 or 300 buffaloes "of all sizes," that "made off 
from the lick in every direction." 

Naturally, their first care was to provide a shelter 
— one that would keep out Indian bullets as well as 
rain and snow. They marked off a rectangular piece 
of ground 165x250 feet large, and, although they were 
a long time completing the structure, at each corner 
of it they built a two-story house of squared logs. The 
upper story was made to project several feet beyond the 
walls of the lower, and it was floored with puncheons, 
(or split planks), thick enough to be bullet proof. In 
the parts of this floor that projected beyond the lower 
story they cut holes through which they could shoot 
down at an enemy beneath, and there were a plenty of 
port holes in the walls of these houses, to cover the 
space around and between them. 

Between these corner houses, (called block-houses), 
and along the lines of the rectangle they built twenty- 
six log cabins, each about eighteen feet square. The 
outside wall of each was laid on the line of the rec- 
tangle, and was built up smooth and solid, (so that no 
Indian could climb it), to a height of twelve feet. It 
contained no door, window or other opening. The inner 
wall was eight feet high, and in this were cut two open- 
ings for windows, and one for a door. The roof was 
laid in a single flat slope from the outer to the inner 

227 



A History of the 

wall, and was covered at first with bark, but afterwards 
with long shingles that were held in place with thick 
poles. 

The rows of cabins did not quite reach the block- 
houses, a space being left so that if one of the rows 
was burned, the adjoining block-house, might be saved. 
But a palisade wall filled these spaces. 

In the center of each of the long sides was a heavy, 
solid gate. Oneopened toward the river; another inland. 
The gates were defended by rows of palisades. The 
loop holes of the block-houses commanded them, and 
so did loop holes in the adjoining cabins. 

The Indians had but one hope of capturing a fort 
like that. The roofs were easily fired. 

James Harrod and his associates built a fort like 
this at Harrodsburg beginning in March, 1775. In fact 
forts of the kind were scattered all over the region. In 
Imlay's "Topographical Description of the Western 
Territory" (published in 1793), is a "Map of Ken- 
tucky" by John Filson. It shows all the settlements 
and outlying posts and homes. The fortified stations 
are represented by marks well worth note. 

But there were also many single cabins built in this 
region far beyond the protection of the forts. They 
were without exception of log walls. An ax and an 
auger were the only tools needed for building such a 
house. The logs were notched together at the corners. 
The rafters were held together and to the tops of walls 
by pegs driven through auger holes. Thick boards 
called puncheons, were split from logs and laid for 
floors, if any floor was laid. Round logs served to sup- 
port such a floor. Doors were made of puncheons also, 

228 



Mississippi Valley. 




A Portion of Filson's Map of 1785, With Harrodsburg. 
229 



^A History of the 

and these were hung on wooden hinges, and barred at 
night with heavy pieces of timber. The doors were 
sometimes made in two parts, upper and lower, and it 
was the custom to open the upper half only, in trouble- 
some times in answer to a hail, because an enemy could 
not readily charge over the lower half. Windows were 
not put in, at first, because the home builder could de- 
fend but one aperture, but for years after peace came, 
the only window was a square hole, closed at night by 
a heavy puncheon shutter. Neither glass nor iron was 
used in those houses. The huge fireplaces were made 
of sandstone where it could be found ; elsewhere of split 
sticks thickly covered with clay. The shingles on the 
roof were held in place by straight logs laid on each 
row; but it should be noted that the log house at first 
was roofed with bark. Says a journal written by one 
Calk, of Boone's early settlement, (Roosevelt), "we 
git our house kivered with bark and move our things 
into it at Night, and begin Housekeeping." That was 
on April 29, 1775. 

The spaces between logs were filled with moss, or 
clay or both, but not always. There is a story of a man 
whose arm was severely bitten by a wolf because, as 
the hungry beast prowled near the cabin, at night, the 
man in his sleep happened to thrust his arm not only 
out of bed, but out through the space between the logs 
on a level with the bed. Another man lying with his 
head near such an opening had his scalp badly torn by 
a wolf. 

In Mansfield's "Life of Dr. Daniel Drake" is a 
letter written by Drake to describe a Kentucky home 
built in the forest in 1788. It was one of a group of 

230 



Mississippi Valley. 




A Portion of Filson's Map of 1785, With Lexington. 
231 



A History of the 

five and all were located so that "no house, in the event 
of being attacked by the Indians, would be unsupported 
by some other." When the parents of Drake moved 
into their cabin it was "one story high, without a win- 
dow, with a door opening to the south, a half finished 
wooden chimney, and a roof on one side only, but with- 
out any upper or lower floor." There was a puncheon 
door, however, and it could be secured by a stout bar. 
The sills for the fioor were also in place, and Drake re- 
called his playing on the ground between these sills, 
while the father and mother stepped from one sill to 
another w^hile arranging their scant household goods. 
He adds that each cabin had port holes in the walls. 
They always kept the axe and scythe under the bed to 
use in case of attack by Indians; and before opening 
the door in the morning the father always climbed up 
the log wall to an unchinked crack between the logs 
through which he peered to see whether any Indians 
were in waiting to rush into the house when the bar 
was removed from the door. 

For descriptions of the furniture of those homes, 
the unfailing resource is Dodridge's "Notes." A table 
was made of split slab and supported by four round 
legs set in auger holes. Some three-legged stools were 
made in the same manner. Some pins stuck in the logs 
at the back of the house supported clapboards which 
served for shelves for the table furniture. A single 
fork, placed with its lower end in a hole in the floor, 
and the upper end fastened to a joist, served for a 
bedstead, by placing a pole in the fork with one end 
through a crack between the logs in the wall. This 
front pole was crossed by a shorter one within the fork, 

232 



Al ississipp i V^ alley. 




A Portion of Filson's Map of 1785, Showing Louisville. 
233 



A History of the 

with its outer end through another crack. From the 
front pole through a crack between the logs at the end 
of the house, (split) boards were put on which formed 
the bottom of the bed. Skins of animals, especially 
bear skins, made excellent substitutes for blankets. 

A hollowed log — a round-bottomed trough — served 
for a cradle. They had the rudest furniture ever seen, 
but also the strongest. Fancy the possibilities before 
him who was rocked to sleep in a hollow log, and was 
taught to read, and imbibed ambition, by the flames of 
a roaring fire-place! 

The furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter 
dishes, plates and spoons ; but mostly of wooden bowls, 
trenchers and noggins, (cups). If these last were 
scarce, gourds and hard-shelled squashes made up the 
deficiency. The iron pots, knives and forks were brought 
from the east side of the mountains on pack horses. 
When china ware came it was not liked because it dulled 
the edge of the scalping knife. 

They had neither closets nor trunks. Their cloth- 
ing hung from pegs driven into the wall. All the pos- 
sessions of the entire family were under the eye of 
every visitor. This people did not cultivate the habit 
of concealment. They were frank and open-hearted. 

But a more important — on the whole probably the 
most important — feature of the frontier was the bee 
habit — the custom of gathering in companies whenever 
opportunity offered. The individual settler girdled 
the trees on the patch of land he wished to clear, and 
when they were dead, he felled them. Then by build- 
ing little fires at intervals of twelve or fifteen feet 
along the trunks — fires of small sticks, oft replenished, 

234 




ANDREW JACKSON. 

From a portrait by Jarvis, in 1815. 



Mississippi Valley. 

and held down by a chunk of a log called a nigger- 
head — the trees were divided into logs. A time came 
when the whole patch was strewn with charred logs, 
much too heavy for one man to handle alone readily, 
even with a team of horses; and yet it was necessary 
to pile them up and burn them before the land could be 
cultivated. To get those logs into a heap was the 
hardest physical toil known to the frontier, and yet for 
the frontiersmen it was literally a whooping joy. For 
food in huge quantities (and, if possible, rum in suffi- 
cient quantities), was procured by the land owner, 
and then the neighbors — all who lived within twenty 
miles — were invited to a log rolling bee. A man who 
was not invited felt seriously offended. By the dozen 
— sometimes by the score — they came to the new home. 
Those who could do so brought horses; some brought 
oxen, some brought their wives and children. In 
troops they flocked, to the log-strewn patch, and then 
with hilarity, energy and muscular exertion never sur- 
passed, if ever equalled, they dragged and flung the 
logs into heaps. 

The children piled on the limbs and brush, and 
bringing brands from the fire-place in the house, started 
fires whose smoke darkened the heavens. 

At noon the company ate dinner with a relish, now 
unknown, save only to a few (chosen of God to enjoy 
life), who sometimes go to the woods. For though 
only corn bread could be served with the wild meat, 
they had appetite and freedom from care. 

Nor was that all. Though it was the heaviest of 
work their muscles were elastic, and as the sun went 
down behind the forest ; and the squirrels leaped from 

235 



A History of the 

tree to tree with mellow crash within sight of the 
house ; and the cardinal and the oriole and the red start 
flamed and drifted among the leaves, these men ban- 
tered each other into wrestling matches and foot races, 
and the victor in each leaped on a stump, flapped his 
arms against his sides, and crowed like a rooster. If 
a fiddle could be had, they ended the lark with a "hoe- 
down" — a dance that made even the log-walled house 
tremble. When Jackson, the hero of these backwoods 
men, had beaten the invader at New Orleans, and the 
people of the city gathered to do him honor at a grand 
ball, he — tall and lank, and his wife, short and round — 
danced what a polished spectator called a "pas de deux." 
They danced a backwoods jig to the tune of "Possum 
up a Gum Tree" — to the intense delight and admiration 
of the riflemen who shot the invader out of the swamp. 

At weddings (and there is scant record of unions 
without weddings), the neighbors made a bee, and 
built a house for the new couple in the course of a few 
hours after the ceremony was ended. And at night 
they put the young couple to bed with many a sly hint, 
as well as good wish. 

They gathered to husk the corn and to make maple 
sugar. Whatever could be done well by companies, 
was done by them in companies. No more indepen- 
dent or self-reliant individuals were ever seen on our 
soil than these home-makers who peopled the Ohio 
watershed, and yet never was a better exhibit of the 
community spirit seen. Each was entirely able to shift 
for himself, but out of love for his neighbors, each 
made haste to lend a hand at every gathering. 

Absolutely necessary to the outfit of every fron- 
236 





MRS. .ANDREW JACKSON. 
Born Rachel Donelson, dauijhter of Col. John Donelson of Vi 
In this portrait she wears the head-dress in which she 
appeared at the ball herein described 



Mississippi Valley. 

tiersman was the rifle. A gunsmith named Deckhard, 
living in Lancaster, Pa., at some unnamed period of 
the border, began making rifles of small bore in place 
of the smooth-bored musket in common use. The 
barrel was an iron tube at least thirty inches long, 
and usually three feet, six inches. The bore was rifled, 
had twisting grooves cut in it, and the bullet that fit 
the bore was a round pellet weighing seventy to the 
pound. In loading the rifle a well-greased linen patch 
was wrapped around the bullet. The patch fitted into 
the grooves, and the bullet was not mutilated like the 
modern rifle projectiles are. It was a remarkably ac- 
curate weapon, though one requiring more skill than 
a modern rifle, for, having a flintlock, there was a 
marked interval between pulling the trigger and the 
discharge of the bullet, an interval during which the 
rifle must be held on the target. But the iron-nerved 
men of the frontier had the skill. They shot running 
deer at a range of 150 yards. They killed geese and 
ducks, and even wild pigeons on the wing. Boys of 
twelve hung their heads in shame if detected in hitting 
a squirrel in any other part of the body than its head. 
Though the bullet was small, it was large enough for 
any game when fired by the men that knew how. One 
of the Zane brothers, who went with Gen. Butler down 
the Ohio in 1785, killed a buffalo that Butler called "a 
real curiosity for size." The animal was more than 
six feet tall when it stood erect. Its head, cut off with 
as little of the neck as possible, weighed 135 pounds. 

A time came when the small bullet went out of 
fashion. Plainsmen, who had horses to ride, wanted 
a bore that would admit the thumb. But the Ken- 

237 



A History of the 

tuckian, who had to "tote" his entire outfit, found the 
small bullet better ; five hundred rounds of ammunition 
weighed less than ten pounds. And in these last days 
the armies of the world are armed once more with 
small caliber rifles, to the entire vindication of the 
Boone class of frontiersmen. 

Says Dodridge regarding the clothing: 
"Amongst those who were much in the habit of 
going hunting, and going on scouts and campaigns, 
the dress of the men was partly Indian and partly that 
of civilized nations. The hunting shirt was universal- 
ly worn. This was a kind of loose frock, reaching half 
way down the thighs, with large sleeves, open before, 
and so wide as to lap over a foot or more when belted. 
The cape (a wide collar) was large, and sometimes 
handsomely fringed with a ravelled piece of cloth of 
different color from that of the hunting shirt itself. 
The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold a 
chunk of bread cakes, jerk (dried meat), tow for wip- 
ing the barrel of the rifle, or any other necessary for 
hunter or warrior. The belt, which was always tied 
behind, answered several purposes besides that of 
holding the dress together. In cold weather the mit- 
tens, and sometimes the bullet bag, occupied the front 
part of it. To the right side was suspended the toma- 
hawk, and to the left the scalping knife with its leath- 
ern sheath. The hunting shirt was generally made of 
linsey, sometimes of coarse linen, and a few of dressed 
deer skins. These last were very cold and uncomfort- 
able in wet weather. The (under) shirt and jacket 
were of the common fashion. A pair of drawers, or 
breeches and leggins, were the dress of the thighs and 

238 




A HUNTER WITH A DECKHARD RIFLE. 
Notice length of same. 



Mississippi Valley. 

legs; moccasins were nicely adapted (fitted) to the 
ankles and lower parts of the legs by thongs of deer 
skin, so that no dust, gravel or snow could get within 
the moccasin. 

"The moccasins in ordinary use cost but a few 
hours' (say two) labor to make them. This was done 
by an instrument denominated a moccasin awl, which 
was made of the back spring of an old clasp knife. 
This awl, with a buckhorn handle was an appendage 
of every shot pouch strap, together with a roll of buck- 
skin for mending the moccasins. This was the labor 
of almost every evening. They were sewed together 
and patched with deer skin thongs, or whangs, as they 
were commonly called. 

"In cold weather the moccasins were stuffed with 
deer's hair, or dry leaves, so as to keep the feet com- 
fortably warm ; but in wet weather it was usually said 
that wearing them was a decent way of going bare- 
footed, and such was the fact, owing to the spongy 
texture of the leather of which they were made. 

"Owing to this defective covering of the feet, more 
than to any other circumstance, the greater number of 
our hunters and warriors were afflicted with rheuma- 
tism in their limbs. Of this disease they were all ap- 
prehensive in cold or wet weather, and therefore al- 
ways slept with their feet to the fire to prevent or cure 
it as well as they could. This practice unquestionably 
had a salutary effect, and prevented many of them be- 
coming confirmed cripples in early life. 

"In later years of the Indian war our young men 
became more enamored of the Indian dress through- 
out, with the exception of the match [watch?] coat. 

239 



A History of the 

The drawers were laid aside and the leggins made 
longer, so as to reach the upper part of the thighs. 
The Indian breech clout was adopted. This was a 
piece of linen or cloth nearly a yard long and eight 
or nine inches broad. This passed under the belt be- 
fore and behind, leaving the ends for flaps hanging be- 
fore and behind over the belt. These flaps were some- 
times ornamented with some kind of coarse embroidery 
work. To the same belts which secured the breech 
clouts were attached strings w4iich supported the leg- 
gins. When this belt, as was often the case, passed 
over the hunting shirt, the upper part of the thighs 
and part of the hips were naked." 

The first woman came to Kentucky in 1775. Af- 
ter building the fort at Boonesborough, Daniel Boone 
went back to North Carolina, and brought his wife, 
with Mrs. Denton, Mrs. McGarry and Mrs. Hogan. 
The journey of the family parties into the wilderness 
usually began at the Holston region. At Watauga, 
or some other mountain settlement nearby, the horses 
were fitted with pack saddles, and the goods of the 
family were piled on these; for families rarely went 
by this route into the wilderness unless able to afford 
horses, either of their own or borrowed. As a rule, 
cows were driven along as well. The older boys had 
charge of the cattle. "The younger children were 
placed in crates of hickory withes and slung across the 
backs of the old, quiet horses," though some found 
seats on top of the goods on the pack horses. Some 
of the women rode, some walked and carried their 
babies, too. The men, with rifles ready, went scouting 
through the woods in all directions, and looked after 

240 



Mississippi Valley. 

the pack horses as well. One of them was always 
elected captain of the band. "Special care had to be 
taken not to let the loaded animals brush against the 
yellow jacket nests, which were always plentiful along 
the trail in the fall of the year, for in such cases the 
vicious swarms attacked men and beasts, producing 
an immediate stampede" that distributed packs and 
children in disordered condition all over the region 
(Roosevelt). 

"The linsey petticoat and bed gown were the uni- 
versal dress of our women in early times. A small 
home-made handkerchief" was worn around the neck. 
"They went barefooted in warm weather, and in cold 
their feet were covered with moccasins, coarse shoes, 
or shoe packs" (Dodridge). 

"Until flax could be grown women were obliged 
to be content with lint made from the bark of dead 
nettles. This was gathered in the springtime by all 
the people of a station acting together, a portion of 
the men standing guard, while the rest, wuth the 
w^omen and children, plucked the dead stalks. The 
smart girls of Irish ancestry spun many dozen cuts of 
linen from this lint, which was as fine as flax but not 
so strong" (Roosevelt, quoting from McAfee Mss.). 

For a contrast recall Gayarre's description of 
French life in Louisiana. The Louisiana houses w^ere 
not pretentious, but a stranger who "passed their 
thresholds w^ould have been amazed at being zuelcomed 
with such manners as zvere habitual in the most pol- 
ished court of Europe, and entertained by men and 
women wearing with the utmost ease and grace the 
elegant costume of the reign of Louis XV. — the pow- 

241 



A History of the 

dered head, the silk and gold flowered coat, the lace 
and frills, the red-heeled shoe, the steel-handled sword, 
the silver knee-buckles, the high and courteous bearing 
of the gentlemen; the hoop petticoat, the brocaded 
gown, the rich head-dress, the stately bow, the slightly 
rouged cheeks, the artificially graceful deportment 
and the aristocratic features of the lady." 

A most instructive contrast is that between the 
dominant people of Louisiana and those of the Ohio 
watershed; it is a most instructive contrast. On the 
one hand stands the courtier displaying with ease and 
grace his lace and frills and red-heeled shoes. On the 
other stands a man dressed in homespun and swinging 
an ax. 

The frontier food is not (and it never was) to be 
passed without consideration. "The articles of (table) 
furniture corresponded very well with the articles of 
diet on which they were employed. *Hog an' hominy' 
[hominy is corn boiled in lye to remove the hulls, 
cleaned, and then boiled till soft in pure water] were 
proverbial for the dish of which they were component 
parts. Johnny cake [a corruption of journey cake, a 
kind of corn bread], and pone [another kind of corn 
bread] , were the only forms of bread in use for break- 
fast and dinner. At supper milk and mush formed 
the standard dish. When milk was not plenty, which 
was often the case, owing to the scarcity of cattle or 
the want of proper pasturage for them, the substantial 
dish of hominy had to supply the place of them ; mush 
was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, 
bear's oil or the gravy of fried meat. 

"Every family, besides a little garden for the few 
242 



Mississippi Valley. 

vegetables which they cultivated, had another small 
enclosure, called the 'truck patch,' in which they raised 
corn for roasting ears, pumpkins, squashes, beans and 
potatoes. These, in the latter part of the summer and 
fall, were cooked with their pork, venison and bear 
meat for dinner, and made very wholesome and well- 
tasted dishes. The standard dinner for every log-roll- 
ing, house-raising and harvest day, was pot pie" [boiled 
meats, such as chickens, grouse, pigeons, veal, or ven- 
ison with abundant dumplings]. What was left over 
was served for supper along with milk to drink. Tea 
and coffee, were, for a long time, unseen. When in- 
troduced, at last, the men thought such "slops" good 
enough for women and children. As for themselves 
they preferred something strong enough "to stick to 
the ribs." 

Mention has been made of the form of govern- 
ment organized by the Watauga people. In 1775 there 
was a similar movement at Boonesborough, Ky. When 
Col. Richard Henderson was establishing his "Tran- 
sylvania" colony at Boonesborough, (1775), Lord 
Dunmore issued a proclamation warning people that 
the act was contrary to the laws of Virginia, and of 
the Crown; but Henderson's company followed 
Daniel Boone to the site of Boonesborough. It was 
a feudal colony that Henderson purposed organizing — 
something like the colony that La Salle ruled for a 
time at Fort Frontenac, and therefore wholly unsuited 
to Americans — but certificates for more than 500,000 
acres of land were issued to colonists by Henderson, 
(whence followed many a law suit). But the act of 
this company most interesting here is the fact that, 

243 



A History of the 

although Henderson did not reach Boonesborough 
until April 20, he issued a call on May 23d to the set- 
tlers of the region asking them to send representatives 
to agree upon some form of government. And the 
settlers came to answer the call. They had not finished 
chinking the walls of their log cabins before they ga- 
thered to establish a system of lawful government. 
They were to establish a system of government ; they 
were not to he ruled over by priest and gold-laced 
commandant. 

On this primitive legislature the Rev. John Lythe 
asked a blessing, for a preacher came with the other 
settlers. The acts passed numbered nine, as follows: 
To establish courts; to regulate the militia; prescribe 
punishment for crimes; to prevent profane swearing 
and Sabbath breaking; providing for writs of attach- 
ment; limiting the fees of legal officers; preserving the 
right of free pasture on public lands; improving the 
breed of horses; for preserving the game. Daniel 
Boone prepared the statutes relating to the preservation 
of game, and improving the breed of horses. 

There was a creed worth consideration in every 
particular, but perhaps the first thought in connection 
with it is that the very first Kentuckians were full of 
sporting blood. They would preserve the game and 
improve the breed of horses. And as a matter of fact 
a race course was laid out at Shallow Ford Station, 
in that very year. It is no wonder Kentucky horses are 
famous. It is to be noted, too, that the game laws were 
aimed against skin hunters — men who came from the 
settlements east of the mountains and killed the wild 
animals for their skins. These home makers claimed 

244 



Mississippi Valley. 

the wild animals along with the lands. The admirablg 
non-export laws of many of the states at the present 
time are founded on that old feeling. 

The colony of Transylvania as a legal organiza- 
tion failed because the proprietary system was wrong, 
and because the proprietors did not have a legal title 
to the lands; but the actual settlers had their titles 
confirmed, while the company received a grant of 200,- 
000 acres, located on the Ohio, and the thriving city 
of Henderson, Ky., perpetuates the name of an enter- 
prising and heroic, if mistaken frontiersman. 

We get another view of Kentucky life from the 
records of Henderson's Transylvania company, where- 
in sales of gunpowder are noted at $2.66 per pound, 
and lead at 16 2-3. The woods rangers or hunters 
employed were paid thirty-three cents a day; and they 
worked from sunrise to sunset, without a doubt. The 
modern definition of the word strike was unknown; 
for every man was man enough to "hoe his own row," 
regardless of bosses, or unions or trusts or other com- 
binations made to wring something from an unwilling 
somebody. 

The fees for acquiring the right to 400 acres of 
land, under the laws of Virginia amounted to $10, in 
1775, but the home maker was obliged to build a log 
house sufficient for a dwelling, and raise and harvest 
a crop of corn in addition. Having done this he 
could acquire 1,000 acres more adjoining his first claim, 
at a cost of $400. 

At the end of 1775 there were 300 men in Ken- 
tucky, it is said, men who intended to make homes. 
A breadth of something more than 200 acres of corn 

245 



A History of the 

had been harvested. The people had abundant food, 
vigorous health, and hope that amounted to enthusiasm. 
There was every needed local indication of a splendid 
development of the new settlements. 

But another war was at hand, and in it these 
frontiersmen were to have a memorable part. On an 
unnamed day, while a party of Kentucky hunters 
camped on a branch of the Elkhorn river near the 
cabin of a man named McConnel, a messenger brought 
them a story of trouble between some Massachusetts 
farmers and a company of British soldiers. The mes- 
senger said that the farmers were gathered with arms 
to resist the soldiers. The commander of the soldiers 
shouted "Disperse, ye villains! Damn you why don't 
you disperse?" But the men of Massachusetts instead 
of obeying the profane tyrant, attacked the soldiers 
and compelled them to fly so swiftly that when rescued 
by reinforcements from Boston, their tongues [were], 
hanging out of their mouths like those of dogs after 
a chase." That was a story to arouse the enthusiasm 
of every American — and especially of such Americans 
as these backwoodsmen — and when the tale was ended 
they named the spot on which they were encamped 
Lexington. 




246 




A Cherokee chief. The reader will note the aixient 
tribal marks upon his face. 




XIV 

ON THE FRONTIER DURING THE REVOLUTION. 

Dunmore's Soldiers Declared They Were Ready to Fight 
for American Liberties — The Responsibility of the 
British Rulers of All Ranks for the Indian Raids on 
the Frontier Home-Makers — The Cherokee Outbreak 
— The First Kentucky Colonel — Pluck of the Fron- 
tier Girl — Life in Harrodsburg During- the War — 
Boone Captured by the Indians — George Rogers 
Clark's Memorable Plan for Defending the Settle- 
ments. 



As the soldiers undei Lord Dunmore marched 
home from their conquest of the Indians northwest of 
the Ohio, late in 1774, they paused near the mouth 
of the Hockhocking river, and the officers gathered 
and "held a notable meeting." Before entering on 
this campaign they knew how the people of Massa- 

247 



A History of the 

chusetts, when the written law had failed them, had, 
in the exercise of "the paramount law of self preser- 
vation," assaulted the British ship Dartmouth, on the 
night of December i6, 1773, and thrown her cargo 
of tea into the bay. They had learned further that five 
acts of brutal oppression had been passed thereafter 
by parliament, and that a Congress representing the 
colonies had assembled in Philadelphia to consider 
the situation. They had followed Dunmore to this war 
cheerfully. They were well enough satisfied with his 
work as a leader. They were still cherishing a feeling 
of loyalty to the King, but their hearts were inspired 
with the feeling which prompted Patrick Henry to say, 
''Give me liberty or give me death," and they thought 
they ought to declare their readiness to fight for 
American freedom "when regularly called forth by the 
voice of their countrymen," and to say at the same time 
that this little backwoods army "could march and 
fight as well as any in the world." 

Among these officers was Captain Micheal Cresap, 
whose murderous assaults on Indians in time of peace 
had brought on the Dunmore war, and he afterward 
made good these words by fighting in a way that goes 
far to redeem him in the eyes of most American stu- 
dents of history. 

The five acts of Parliament that followed immedi- 
ately on the Massachusetts appeal to the "paramount 
law of self preservation" provided : That the port of 
Boston should be closed until Massachusetts paid the 
owners of the destroyed tea its full value; that the 
charter of the colony should be annulled and an abso- 
lute despotism substituted ; that any soldier or revenue 

248 



Mississippi Valley. 

officer charged with kilHng a citizen should be tried 
for the crime in England instead of Massachusetts; 
that British troops should be quartered thereafter in 
Boston, and that all of the British territory lying west 
of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio river should 
be added to Canada and "governed by a viceroy with 
despotic powers." "Such people as should come to live 
there were to have neither popular meetings, nor ha- 
beas corpus, nor freedom of the press." 

This last act is known in history as the Quebec Bill. 
When the King, in 1763, by proclamation, set aside 
this region as a royal domain in which no land could 
be purchased from the Indians but by royal authority, 
it is likely that he was moved chiefly by a desire to 
save the Indians from imposition, and thus preserve 
peace with them, no matter what the Board of Trade 
had in view. But the manifest design of the Quebec 
Bill was to restrict the territorial limits of the colonies; 
and because it reaffirmed, and was based on the old 
French claim that Canada extended to and included the 
Ohio Valley, it is naturally the subject of much com- 
ment among critical historians. But because the cur- 
rent of events in the Mississippi was not changed by 
the Quebec Bill, a mere mention of it will suffice here, 
and this chapter may be devoted wholly to things done. 

It will help to a better comprehension of the things 
done in the valley to recall the fact that while Hender- 
son was laying the foundation of his Transylvania col- 
ony in Kentucky, by buying the land of the Cherokees, 
(March, 1775), Parliament was raising the number 
of British regulars stationed in the American colonies 
to 10,000. In March and April, while Boone was cut- 

249 



A History of the 

ting the trail from Cumberland Gap to Boonesborough, 
Franklin was on his way home from England because 
he had seen that war could not be averted. It was 
more than a month after the battle of Lexington, 
(which occurred on April 19, 1775,) that the fron- 
tiersmen met at Boonesborough, and established a 
form of government. 

It is an interesting fact that the rapid growth of 
population in Kentucky, after Dunmore's war, (1774), 
was due in part to the migration of Eastern people 
"who were trying to escape the disorders of the grow- 
ing contest with England. And it is to be noted, by 
the way, that not a few of these new arrivals were 
ne'er-do-wells, horse thieves and desperadoes, but in 
coming west most of these people made a very 
great mistake, for those that wished to escape war soon 
found the Indians on their trail, and the desperadoes 
found that the home makers recognized the right of 
private war in the interests of order — that disorder 
would be repressed by the use of noosed ropes or well- 
aimed rifles. 

This brings us to the most important feature of the 
American Revolution as seen in the Mississippi Valley 
— the British use of the Indians. Any attempt to gloss 
over, or palliate the acts of the British in this matter, 
even though done to promote international harmony, is 
but a form of foolish lying; and no good can be pro- 
moted by a lie. 

The first troubles of the people in the Ohio Valley, 
as a result of the Revolution, came through the success- 
ful efforts of the British agents to incite the Indians to 
attack the home-makers. And their last troubles were 

250 



Mississippi Valley. 

due to the same cause. In fact the British made no 
move in the Great Valley but with the aid of the In- 
dians. In the present state of civilization, it is diffi- 
cult for many people to believe these facts, but the 
truth is that the British authorities, from the King 
down through the ministers, and the local rulers, to 
the Tory partisans, deliberately approved the use of 
Indians. In some cases local officials, gleefully ap- 
proved, incited and took part in Indian raids wherein 
women were outraged and murdered, little children 
were slaughtered, and men were burned at the stake. 
When Col. Henry Hamilton began his work with the 
Indians at Detroit, it appears that (to quote Winsor's 
"Westward Movement," p. iii), he "was acting in 
anticipation of orders which he had asked of Germain. 
These, when received, — dated March 26, 1777 — con- 
formed to Hamilton's suggestions, and directed him to 
organise Indian raids against the frontier. We have 
his own statement (made) in the following July, that 
he had up to that date sent out fifteen distinct parties 
on such fiendish errands." 

The facts in this matter shall be given as briefly 
as possible, but to see, first of all, that the humanity 
of the British in authority was on a level where these 
things were possible, it is necessary only that the reader 
recall a few such acts of the British troops in the east 
as the first foray into Jersey, where they "set fire to 
farm houses, murdered peaceful citizens and violated 
women ;" the acts of Gen. Richard Prescott, who, when 
he took possession of Newport, "encouraged his sol- 
diers in plundering houses and offering gross insults 
to ladies ;" the capture of Norfolk where "every house 

251 



A History of the 

was burned to the ground, many unarmed citizens 
were murdered, and delicate ladies were abandoned to 
the diabolical passions of the soldiery." The quota- 
tions are from Fiske's "American Revolution." One 
notable British historian, quoted by Fiske, says dis- 
tinctly that the Americans would have been justified in 
refusing- to give quarter, when Stony Point was taken, 
and thereby, as Fiske points out, portrays the level of 
his own civilization and that of people who approve his 
words. 

It is now coming to be understood, even among 
the most obtuse observers in Europe, that American 
armies have always shown marvelous efficiency, even 
after brief training, because every man in the ranks has 
always fully understood the cause of the war in hand, 
and fully approved the object for which it was waged, 
and felt and manifested the keenest personal interest 
in the success of his arms. In other words, American 
armies have been composed of united thinking men, 
instead of well-trained, unthinking brutes. But it is 
not yet understood that this personal knowledge of the 
causes of the conflict and this personal interest in the 
result necessarily led to lasting indignation and prej- 
udice. This is not to commend or even excuse lasting 
anger and prejudice; it is to deplore them and to point 
out that these are among the chiefest of the inevitable 
evils of any war involving a thinking people. It is 
also worth observing that when the cause of ill-feeling 
is known, a remedy may often be found. 

Americans came to feel "a deadly and lasting 
hatred which their sons and grandsons inherited," not 
because the Indians were employed to fight American 

252 



Mississippi Valley. 

soldiers, as when Carlton employed them to fight 
Arnold on Lake Champlain. Americans did as much. 
It was because the Indians were deliberately sent 
against zvomen and children. This point is to be most 
carefully considered. "God and nature hath put into 
our hands the scalping knife and tomahawk, to torture 
them into unconditional submission," said the Earl 
of Suffolk (Almon's Remembrancer, viii., p. 328). 
A price was put on scalps, and a woman's scalp was 
purchased as readily as a man's. The Indians received 
various prices for the scalps brought in, but the white 
marauders who went on raid with the Indians received 
"a bounty of 200 acres of land," ( Winsor's "Westward 
Movement," p. iii). The British officers, among 
whom Col. Hamilton, commander at Detroit was most 
infamous, sent out the Indians for the deliberate and 
openly-declared purpose of "driving in" the frontier 
homemakers and depopulating the newly-settled dis- 
tricts. 

"Hamilton and his subordinates, both red and 
white, were engaged in what was essentially an effort 
to exterminate the borderers," says Roosevelt in "Win- 
ning the West." It was "a war of extermination 
waged with appalling and horrible cruelty." "It 
brings out in bold relief the fact that in the West the 
the War of the Revolution was an effort on the part 
of Great Britain to stop the westward growth of the 
English race in America, and to keep the region be- 
yond the Alleghanies as a region where only savages 
should dwell." 

"Few, if any, British officers brought themselves 
so much under severe criticism for inciting savage 

253 



A History of the 

barbarities as Governor Hamilton. He sang war 
songs with the braves, he made gifts to parties return- 
ing with scalps. * * * fjis glee at the successful 
outcome of savage raids was not unshared by many in 
the royal service," says Winsor in "The Westward 
Movement," p. 127. 

When Hamilton was captured, he was sent to Vir- 
ginia, where his conduct was investigated by the Coun- 
cil of Virginia. In their report the Council say : "The 
boaid find that Governor Hamilton gave standing re- 
wards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners, 
which induced the Indians, after making the captives 
carry their baggage into the neighborhood of the fort, 
there put them to death, and carry in their scalps to 
the governor, who welcomed their return and suc- 
cesses by a discharge of cannon." 

This was a judicial investigation made by men who 
were not frontiersmen, to determine what treatment 
Hamilton should receive as a prisoner. The evidence 
of Hamilton's inhumanity led to his imprisonment in 
irons. 

In order to palliate these admitted facts, some 
writers note that even Hamilton was in the habit of 
telling the Indians, as he sent them forth, that they 
should spare the women and children. There is no 
doubt that Hamilton did do that, but when these same 
warriors returned with the blood of women and chil- 
dren on their tomahawks, Hamilton joined in their 
rejoicing and rewarded them. 

In view of this rejoicing over the slaughter of the 
innocents, there can be but one interpreting of his habit 
of telling the Indians, as he sent them forth, not to kill 

254 



Mississippi Valley. 

women and children. He did it for the sole purpose 
of throwing dust in the eyes of critics who might come, 
eventually, to call him to account for his barbarity. 
He was animated by a regard for "appearances," as 
Dumas was, when in command at Ft. Duquesne. In- 
stead of his words palliating his conduct, they do but 
blacken it; for they show his hypocrisy. 

The first outbreak of the savages during the Revo- 
lution was in June, 1776, when the Cherokees, on 
receiving fifty horse loads of ammunition from the 
British, were induced to go to war. It was an out- 
break due solely to the desire to ravage the frontier 
of the Patriots, for there was no British army in the 
South, at the time, and no success which the Indians 
could attain would serve in the remotest degree to 
return the colonists to their allegiance to the King. 

The Cherokees numbered 2,400 warriors at the 
time, it is said — more than twice the force that Old 
Cornstalk had in his great fight at Point Pleasant. 
Dividing this force into large parties (the party that 
attacked the Watauga settlements numbered 700), they 
came upon the frontier like packs of wolves. The 
home-makers fled toward the forted villages, whenever 
warning came to them in time, but many an unfortun- 
ate knew nothing of the danger until the painted war- 
riors were upon him. Cameron, the British agent, and 
a number of tories were with some of the red bands, 
but it is likely that their presence added to the horrors 
of the raids; at any rate the women and children 
slaughtered outnumbered the men, and many of the 
men slain were unarmed. That men were burned at 
the stake scarcely need be said, but it is recorded that 

255 



A History of the 

one boy was carried from a Watauga home, and at 
Tuskega was slowly tortured to death; and a woman 
would have been served in Hke manner, but for the 
humanity of one squaw, known as Nancy Ward, who, 
having great influence in her tribe, interfered with 
success. Of the cattle that were killed, homes burned 
and fields wasted, mere mention is necessary. 

Naturally the first settlers to strike back were those 
of the Watauga region. While nearly all of the stock- 
ades in that region had no more than men enough for 
successful defence, that in Eaton's Station had some 
to spare, and these could not remain cooped up. Sally- 
ing out on the morning of July 20, 1776, in a band 
170 strong, they found a party of Indians near their 
Island flats, but failed to get even one of them. 

It seemed improbable that any damage could be 
inflicted on the Indians after they had learned the 
whites were out, and the whites turned back to the 
fort. Then the Indians, seeing the whites turn, sup- 
posed them panic stricken, and raising the war whoop, 
came in a mass of a hundred or so, led by the famous 
chief, Dragging Canoe; they were expecting to slaugh- 
ter the whole company of whites, but the whites 
formed in line and allowed the Indians to come until 
within easy range. Then they opened a shriveling fire 
which turned the wild war whoops into howls of dis- 
may. Yet the Indians carried off their wounded 
(among whom was Dragging Canoe), and presumably 
most of their dead, for the whites got but thirteen 
scalps. Four settlers were wounded badly, but none 
killed. It was one of the rare occasions where the 
Indian losses exceeded those of the whites. 

256 



Mississippi Valley. 

About this time a party from the Wolf Hills Fort 
took eleven red scalps which they hung above the fort 
gate, Indian fashion. The Watauga fort, v^here Rob- 
ertson and John Sevier were, had no more than fifty 
men, and remained on the defensive. Some would 
go forth, however, and three or four were killed, and 
the boy who was burned at Tuskega, was captured. 
One girl — Kate Sherrill — "brown haired, comely, tall, 
lithe and supple," would go down to the stream, one 
day, and the Indians who were in hiding nearby, 
dashed forth to capture her. 

It was a most thrilling race, for they headed her 
away from the gate; but nothing daunted, she ran 
straight to the palisades, leaped up, caught two pointed 
tops, and drawing herself up, tumbled over, and 
dropped into the arms of John Sevier, who had shot 
her foremost pursuer, meantime, and who was stand- 
ing ready to catch her. 

Sevier at this time was a widower, and one of the 
most popular men of the country. Kate was one of 
the most charming girls of all the mountain region. 
So John and Kate were married, and the girl who 
could mount a twelve-foot palisade became the first 
lady of Tennessee, for Sevier was elected Governor 
as soon as the State was admitted to the Union. 

One of the most interesting features of frontier 
life is found in the stories of loves and marriages that 
followed the gatherings of families into the forts dur- 
ing the Indian raids — raids that were made to depop- 
ulate the frontier. 

The raids east of the mountains roused the inhab- 
itants. The militia were called out by the thousand. 



A History of the 

and then in due course the Cherokee towns were raided 
in turn. And a Cherokee town was not like a collec- 
tion of bark shelters found in the north, for the Chero- 
kees built good log houses and cultivated large fields. 
They were civilizing themselves steadily, if slowly, 
and the return raids made into their country, inflicted 
such serious damage that the majority of the Chero- 
kees had to flee for succor to the Creeks and live on 
charity, during the ensuing winter. They were chas- 
tised in a way that compelled the clans to keep the 
peace for several years. 

And yet old Dragging Canoe refused to join in 
the peace. Going down to the Chickamauga, he gath- 
ered the outlaws of every clan and tribe of red men, 
with bloodthirsty desperadoes from among the Tories, 
and there established a pirate community. In the 
course of the fighting, however, the Cherokees lost 
200 men killed, while the whites lost as many men, 
and more than 200 women and children. 

Meantime the Kentuckians were organizing their 
country as a county of Virginia. At a gathering in 
Harrodsburg, in the middle of June, 1776, they elected 
George Rogers Clark (the youth who had been under 
Cresap in the murderous attack on Indians below 
Wheeling, in 1774), and one other man to carry a 
petition to the Virginia legislature. This petition was 
dated June 20, 1776, and the most interesting para- 
graph in it was that which pointed out "how impolitic 
it would be to suffer such a Respectable Body of 
Prime Riflemen to remain in a state of neutrality" 
while the United Colonies were in a desperate struggle 
for liberty. 

258 



Mississippi Valley. 

Clark succeded in his mission. Kentucky was ad- 
mitted as a county, with Harrodsburg as the county 
town. The mihtia were organized, and John Bowman 
was placed in command with the rank of colonel — the 
name of the first Kentucky colonel is, doubtless, a 
matter of National, if not of world-wide, interest. 

In the meantime, Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo 
(the Iroquois of the Ohio) chiefs had assembled at 
the forks of the Ohio, and declared for neutrality in 
the conflict between the colonies and England, but 
that was a position they could not hold. Col. Henry 
Hamilton, with abundant supplies of goods for pres- 
ents, and money for the purchase of scalps, was at 
work to incite the Indians to raid the home makers. 
The colonies had little money for any purpose — they 
could not compete with this well-supplied official in 
bargaining for the favor of these red men. Besides 
the commissioners of Congress were trying to keep 
them neutral only. Hamilton offered them the still 
greater delight of shedding the blood of unarmed men, 
and helpless women and children. After the training 
which the Indians had received at the hands of the 
whites, during the preceding 150 years, there could 
be no question as to the course they would pursue. 

During 1776 small parties of the Ohio Indians 
began making raids into Kentucky and other parts of 
the frontier. Numbers of Ottawas, Pottawattomies and 
Chippewas, the raptores of the Great Lakes, came to 
the feasts of blood and plunder. 

One story of these raiders in 1776 may be told to 
show the pluck of the frontier girl. On July 14, five 
Indians carried off Boone's daughter, Jemima, with 

259 



A History of the 

Betsy and Fanny Calloway. The Indians made the 
girls wade in brooks, and took pains to obliterate the 
trail in every way, but Betsy Calloway, in spite of 
the uplifted tomahawks, kept breaking twigs and rip- 
ping off bits of her dress to catch the eyes of those 
she knew would follow. And so a party, led by Boone, 
and including the lovers of the three girls, came upon 
the Indians, late the next day, as they were preparing 
to cook a buffalo calf they had killed, and shot two of 
them. The three who were untouched fled, almost 
naked and without any weapon, into the forest and 
escaped. 

The fighting, when a band of 200 Indians came 
to Wheeling on the morning of September 2, 1777, 
showed the metal of the frontiersmen. They arrived 
at daylight, a thick fog aiding them materially. A 
little later a white man and a negro left the fort to 
bring in some horses from a pasture. A party of six 
Indians waylaid the two men and killed one of them. 
One, it appears, was allowed to escape in order that 
he might bring out a party to attack the six, with the 
idea that they were a small band of raiders. Anyway, 
fifteen men left the fort to hunt the Indians, and before 
them the six Indians fled until the white men were led 
into an ambush. Then the Indians in hiding rose up 
with the war whoop, and closed in. But, although 
outnumbered more than twelve to one, the trapped 
men refused to yield. Twelve died fighting, and three 
escaped by hiding in the brush. A party of twelve 
that came from the fort to aid the fifteen were also 
trapped, but of these four escaped to the brush. 

The men now remaining in the fort numbered no 
260 



Mississippi Valley. 

more than fourteen, but the Zane brothers, who were 
too humane and just to take part in the murders pre- 
ceding Lord Dunmore's War, were among them. The 
Indians came to the dwelhngs that stood near the fort 
and called on the whites to surrender, but the whites 
replied by firing at every patch of red skin that came 
in view. The women aided the men by running bul- 
lets, by cooling the heated guns and even by taking 
places at the port-holes to fire at the red men. 

Knowing that the force of settlers was small, the 
Indians came boldly to the fort gate, carrying a log 
for a battering ram; but their dash failed because of 
the deadly aim of the defenders. All that day and the 
following night the Indians raged vainly around the 
fort. The next morning a small relief party (thirteen 
or fifteen men), came to the fort by way of the river, 
and a little later a party of forty men, led by Major 
Samuel McCulloch, arrived on horseback. As this 
party approached the fort, McCulloch was cut off 
from his men. The Indians were so close to him that 
the only way of escape led toward the top or crest of 
a "slipbank," 300 feet high, and steep and rocky. But 
McCulloch galloped to the brink, and plunging head- 
long down, he reached the bottom safely and crossed 
the flats to the fort. The precipice is there yet, but the 
slope is moderate in these days. 

Harrodsburg was under fire nearly all the summer 
of 1777, the besieging parties of Indians coming in 
such quick succession that the people of the neighbor- 
hood were unable to raise any crops, save a few tur- 
nips. 

On one occasion the uneasiness of the cattle (cattle 
261 



A History of the 

always showed fear when they smelled Indians), gave 
them warning, and they were able to attack a party 
of Indians who were trying to ambush some men at 
work in a field. Three of the Indians were killed, one 
by George Rogers Clark, who was in the fort almost 
all summer. The plunder these Indians left behind 
was sold at auction for £70, 

The siege here was so close, at times, that the peo- 
ple were at the point of starvation. The most skillful 
woodsmen tried sneaking away from the fort at night 
to get game, but so many were caught and killed, that 
a time came when no more men could be spared. In 
this emergency, James Ray, a lad of seventeen years, 
begged permission to try, and because of a previous 
adventure, he was allowed to go. In the previous 
adventure, Ray, with two other boys, had been at 
work, in a field four miles from the fort, when a pack 
of forty-seven Indians, under a chief named Black- 
fish, attacked them. The two boys with Ray were 
killed, but Ray, in a four-mile race for life, fairly and 
easily outran the whole pack. The hungry settlers in 
the fort thought that one who could run as he could 
might escape; so they let him try for game. 

In the dark hour just before day, this boy led an 
old horse from the fort into the river, and then by 
riding continually in the stream or its branches to 
conceal his trail, he reached safe hunting grounds and 
killed a load of meat. This he brought to the fort by 
the same trail, and so succored the famishing garrison. 
And these expeditions were made time and again with- 
out the Indians learning anything about them. 

Nevertheless, Ray was at last to have about the 
262 



Mississippi Valley. 

narrowest escape of any of the people in Kentucky. 
A man named McConnel was out trying his rifle at 
a mark, with Ray beside him, at a time when the peo- 
ple supposed no Indians were near. But suddenly a 
shot from the brush killed McConnel, and then a great 
body of Indians leaped out to take the boy. 

For 150 yards the boy ran, with the Indians so 
close to him that the people in the fort were obliged 
to close the gate lest the Indians enter with him. But 
as the gate closed, the garrison opened fire, and the 
Indians stopped, while Ray threw himself flat on the 
the ground behind a stump, near the bottom log of one 
of the cabins that formed the fort wall. 

His peril, however, was now greater than before, 
because, on seeing they could not capture him, the 
Indians opened fire. To try to rise and run for the 
gate was but to give the Indians a better chance to 
kill him, and to lie still was to be reached by a bullet, 
sooner or later. 

Nevertheless, his wit was sufficient for the occa- 
sion. 

"For God's sake, dig a hole under the wall and 
take me in," he shouted, and in a few minutes the work 
was done, and he was safe. He lived to be governor 
of the state. 

It was a perilous summer, but in the course of it, 
George Rogers Clark sent two spies among the French 
of Illinois, and in a diary that he kept is found this 
entry : 

"July 9 — Lieutenant Linn married, great merri- 
ment." 

Boone says "Col. Harrod's fort was then defended 
263 



A History of the 

by only sixty-five men, and Boonesborough by twenty- 
two, there being no more forts or white men in the 
country, except at the Falls, a considerable distance 
from these, * * * but a handful to the numerous war- 
riors that everywhere dispersed through the country." 
' And yet in spite of the "numerous warriors," a 
party of forty-five men — home seekers — came in from 
North Carolina, arriving on July 25, 1777, and a 
hundred more arrived on August 20. 

Early in 1778, while making salt at the Blue Licks, 
Daniel Boone and a party were captured by a band 
of eighty Miamis, and were taken to Detroit. Because 
Boone was such a famous frontiersman, Hamilton 
tried to ransom him, but the Indians preferred to 
adopt him, and thus gave him a chance to escape. 

This chance came just as the Indians were prepar- 
ing to start in large force on a raid into Kentucky. 
Boone traveled 160 miles in four days, eating but one 
meal during the time. Knowing that Boone would 
prepare the settlements for the attack, the raiders 
remained at home. 

Boone was raised to the rank of Major in the militia 
on his return. 

On August 8, 1778, the Indians came to Boones- 
borough with a force of more than 300 under a French 
partisan named Daigniau de Quindre. There were 
eleven other French soldiers of fortune in the band. 

By asking for time in which to consider a demand 
for surrender, Boone was able to put the fort into good 
condition, and then he laughed at the simple French- 
men. In return the Frenchmen persuaded Boone and 
eight others to come out and meet nine Frenchmen 

264 



Mississippi Valley. 

and nine Indians to discuss a treaty of peace. All met 
unarmed according to agreement, but the Frenchmen 
and Indians tried to carry off the Kentuckians bare- 
handed. 

Of course they failed, for no two men of any other 
race could, (or can), carry off, barehanded, an Ameri- 
can frontiersman. An effort to run a tunnel under the 
fort was blocked, and the invaders went away deeply 
humiliated. Many other stories of raids of similar 
character are found in the annals, but as they were 
much alike, and none had any lasting effect on the 
ultimate isues of the war, no more shall be given here. 

In the meantime the spies sent by George Rogers 
Clark had returned to Harrodsburg with the news that 
Kaskaskia and other British posts in the Illinois coun- 
try were but feebly manned, and that the French popu- 
lation had very little love for their British rulers, 
though they had been taught to believe the American 
frontiersmen, (known, by the way, as the Long 
Knives), were devils incarnate for fighting, and mon- 
sters for cruelty and rapacity. 

To Clark this news was most cheering, for he 
could now see his way to success in an expedition to 
the Illinois country. Whether or not Clark then saw 
the tremendous results involved in the capture of the 
British posts is a question which has been discussed, 
but this much is undoubted : Clark saw that the way 
to defend the Kentucky settlements from aggression 
was to capture the British posts from which the raids 
were made. One summer passed within the walls of 
Harrodsburg fort was all of the porcupine style of 
fighting that he wanted. He determined to fight the 

265 



A History of the 

wolves in their dens, and what he accompHshed shall 
be told in the next chapter. 

But before passing to the achievements of this 
hero of the frontier it is worth while noting that there 
were a few wolves among the Americans. While the 
British were still bargaining with the red men, Old 
Cornstalk, the red warrior who led his host with con- 
summate skill at the battle of Point Pleasant, and with 
his words, "Be strong! Be strong!" gave courage to 
the weak through all that deadly strife, now favored 
the Americans by speeches in council; and in every 
way possible, he opposed the British agents. Finally, 
when he saw that he must fail, he went to Fort Ran- 
dolph, at Point Pleasant, to give the officers there due 
warning. A young chief named Red Hawk went with 
him. In spite of Cornstalk's friendly act he was im- 
prisoned, and when his son Ellinipsico came to learn 
why the old chief did not return home, he too was 
held a prisoner. 

The next day after Ellinipsico arrived, two men 
from the garrison, while hunting on the farther side 
of the Kanawha, were ambushed by Indians, and one 
was killed. To avenge the death of this man, the 
militia ran to the quarters where the unarmed Corn- 
stalk and his son, and Red Hawk, were confined, work- 
ing up their passions the while, with shouts and yells. 

The coming rabble frightened the son, but old 
Cornstalk, whose courage had never faltered, said : 

"My son, the Great Spirit has seen fit that we 
should die together, and has sent you here to that 
end. It is His will, and let us submit — it is all for 
the best." 

266 




fiEORGE KiiClsKS ClAKK. 

From an oil-painting in the possession of Vincennes University, Ind. 

said to be the only portrait from life now in existence. 




XV 



THE WORK OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 

The Expedition that Acquired for the United States All 
the Territory Between the Ohio River, the Great 
Lakes and the Mississippi Was Started on a Cash 
Capital of £1,200 — The Lone Stranger that Stood in 
the Doorway of the Ball Room at Kaskaskia, and 
the Effect of His Appearances on the Dancers — A 
Bit of Acting that Was Far More Effective than 
Gunshots — A Striking Comparison of the "Hair- 
Buyer" Hamilton with George Rogers Clark. 

During all the time that George Rogers Clark w^as 
planning, in Harrodsburg, his attack on the British 
posts of the Northwest, he did not give any one so 
much as a hint of what was on his mind. Even the 
spies who went to Kaskaskia thought they were making 
this adventuresome trip in the interests of trade. With 

267 



A History of the 

equal reticence he left Harroclsbiirg on October i, 
1777, and started alone over the Wilderness Road, to 
Old Virginia, to obtain men and supplies for the 
meditated expedition. 

Clark arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia's capital, 
at an auspicious time. Burgoyne, through the well- 
laid plans of Schuyler and the hard fighting of Stark, 
Morgan and Arnold, had been compelled to surrender 
his entire army, and "things seemed to wear a pleasant 
aspect," in consequence. 

On December 10, Clark laid his plans before Gover- 
nor Patrick Henry. The man who had said "Give me 
liberty or give me death !" was able to appreciate the 
splendid project, and when Thomas Jefferson, George 
Mason and George Wythe were called on they also 
gave it hearty approval. 

Only these men learned that such an expedition was 
contemplated. Clark was made a Colonel in the Vir- 
ginia militia, and he received £1,200 in depreciated 
currency for expenses. An expedition to take posses- 
sion of all the region between the Ohio, the Great 
Lakes and the Mississippi was started with a cash cap- 
ital of ii,2oo in depreciated currency! 

If there is anything in history that can convert the 
fool who says in his heart there is no God, it is the 
story of the American Revolution. That pitiful sum 
was sufficient for George Rogers Clark. What he 
lacked in cash he made up with his youthful energy and 
hopefulness, for he was only twenty-five years old. 
Taking his money he went to Pittsburg, authorized to 
enlist 700 men, ostensibly to defend Kentucky from in- 
vasion, and with his utmost efforts was able to fill three 

268 



Mississippi Valley. 

companies of fifty men each. With these, and the 
rumor that four companies had been raised in Ken- 
tucky, he took boats and went down the Ohio River to 
the Falls, (Louisville), where he landed on Corn 
Island, May 27, 1778. Instead of four companies, he 
found less than 100 men, and when, at last, public an- 
nouncement of the object of the expedition was made, 
a considerable number of these deserted. 

And yet, after building a fort, Clark divided his 
force in order to garrison the island and protect some 
settlers who had come down the river with him to 
make homes there. He was then able to organize only 
four companies, each having less than fifty men, for 
the expedition, (he had 175 men all told) ; but with 
unsurpassed pluck he launched forth his boats on June 
24, 1778, just as an eclipse of the sun was coming on, 
and in the growing darkness they shot the falls and 
proceeded on their way. The captains of the four 
companies were John Montgomery, Joseph Bowman, 
Leonard Helm and William Harrod. 

The river was followed until nine miles below the 
mouth of the Tennessee, when Clark turned into the 
mouth of the Massac Creek, that enters the Ohio about 
200 yards above the "steep, low hill of iron-stained 
gravel and clay" on which old Fort Massac was built 
by the French after they were driven from Fort Du- 
quesne, (Pittsburg) by the Quaker emissary, Fred- 
erick Post. Fort Massac was in ruins and without 
garrison when Clark arrived, and he rested for one 
night beside the creek. Here he was joined by a party 
of American hunters who, in ranging over the plains 
of Illinois, had been to Kaskaskia. They told Clark 

269 



A History of the 

that Rocheblave, a Frenchman in the British service, 
had kept the fort at Kaskaskia in good repair, and the 
mihtia well drilled and ready for a fight. The Missis- 
sippi was carefully watched, and that the French in- 
habitants hated and feared the Americans, as the Span- 
ish-Americans hated the buccaneers — a story that 
pleased Clark right well. 

Sending out scouts to capture any stragglers from 
the enemy's camp, and to kill game for the subsistence 
of his men, (for no pack train encumbered his move- 
ments), Clark started overland for Kaskaskia, guided 
by one of the hunters. After winding his way through 
fifty miles of forest and crossing the grove-marked 
plains beyond, he reached the bank of Kaskaskia River, 
three miles from the fort, on the evening of July 4, 
1778. Here the command hid in the forest on the low 
grounds until night came, when boats enough were 
procured at a river-side farm to ferry them across the 
stream. 

Then dividing the force, a half of the men were 
sent to form a cordon around the village, so that no one 
could escape, while Clark led the remainder silently 
to a covered gateway on the river side of the fort. 
Fortunately, no sentinel was on guard, and unopposed, 
Clark led his force within the walls. 

The officials of the post were giving a ball to the 
inhabitants of the place, that night. A great hall was 
h'ghted by many candles, and with torches, here and 
there, and within were gathered a merry host of Cre- 
oles, dancing with a glee that was delightful. 

Walking to the door of the hall, Clark stopped and 
"leaned silently with folded arms against the doorpost, 

270 



Mississippi Valley. 

looking at the dancers. An Indian lying on the floor 
of the entry, gazed intently on the stranger's face, as 
the light from the torches within flickered across it, 
and suddenly sprang to his feet, uttering the unearthly 
war whoop. 

"Instantly the dancing ceased ; the women screamed 
while the men ran towards the door. But Clark, stand- 
ing unmoved, and with unchanged face, grimly bade 
them continue their dancing, but to remember that they 
now danced under Virginia and not Great Britain!" 
( Roosevelt. ) 

And thereafter they never did dance under Great 
Britain, in that town. For the Americans secured the 
garrison, including the commander, as Clark gazed on 
the dancers, and the flag that replaced the British was 
never lowered. It is plain that Clark understood the 
French character well when he appeared alone at the 
door of the ballroom. He could have done nothing else 
that would have impressed them so deeply. 

All night the backwoods Americans patrolled the 
dark streets of the town in ominous silence, while the 
French shivered with fear in their unlighted homes to 
which they were sent as soon as Clark saw that they 
would dance no more. The tales of bloody deeds done 
by merciless backwoodsmen from Kentucky, of which 
they had heard enough, were remembered in detail. 
When morning came, the French inhabitants were in 
a state of mind whereupon a deputation, headed by the 
priest, (Father Pierre Gibault), waited on Clark to 
beg for their lives. They said they were "willing to be 
slaves to save their families." 

At that Clark, who had cultivated their fears by 
271 



A History of the 

night, told the trembling suppliants that the Americans 
had come to set them free, not to slaughter or enslave 
them; and that any who wished to take the oath of 
allegiance to the United States would thereby become 
American citizens, with all American privileges, while 
all who preferred to leave might depart in peace. 

Hardly crediting his own senses, Father Gibault 
asked whether the Catholic Church could be opened. 
Clark replied that the American government had noth- 
ing whatever to do with any religion, save only to 
protect every man in his right to worship God accord- 
ing to the dictates of his own conscience. 

The conquest of Kaskaskia was completed by that 
assurance. The deputation returned "with noisy joy" 
to the church, where they sang Te Deum, and the peo- 
ple made haste to swear allegiance to the new flag. 
Only Rocheblave remained obdurate. He replied with 
insulting language to an invitation to dine with Clark, 
and his slaves were sold for £500, (which was dis- 
tributed as prize money among the soldiers), after 
which he was sent to Virginia as a prisoner. When 
there he broke his parole and escaped. Cahokia, the 
nearby French settlement, was conquered, on the same 
terms, by merely sending an account of what had been 
done at Kaskaskia, and Father Gibault volunteered to 
go to Vincennes and bring it under the flag, a mis- 
sion in which he succeeded perfectly. 

At once Clark enlisted a considerable body of 
French youth as militia and spent much time in drilling 
them and his own men; but a new danger impended 
in the arrival of a host of red men who came to Caho- 
kia to learn what had happened, and Clark met them 

272 



Mississippi Valley. 

there. They were all from the Great Lakes — Chippe- 
was, Pottawattomies, Sacs and Foxes — and there was 
an insolence in the bearing of a part of them, (known 
as the Meadow Indians), that might well have alarmed 
any commander having no more rifles behind him than 
Clark had. 

But Clark was exactly fitted to handle these wild 
men without bloodshed. The first open aggression 
came on the third night, when a party forced them- 
selves into the house where Clark had his headquarters. 
But Clark had suspected treachery, and had a force 
in waiting that promptly captured and ironed the red 
men. 

The warriors begged for release, saying they 
were merely trying to see if the French were really 
friendly to the Americans, but Clark listened with 
indifference, even when some chief men of other tribes 
came to beg favor for the prisoners. To make a still 
deeper impression, Clark "assembled a number of Gen- 
tlemen and Ladies, and danced nearly the whole night." 

The next day, after some negotiations with the 
other Indians about the future relations of the various 
tribes to the "Long Knives," the fettered Indians were 
brought before the Council. There Clark told them 
that everybody thought they ought to die for making 
an attack upon him during the sacred time of council, 
and that he had fully determined to kill them, but he 
had learned they were old women and not men, and for 
their treachery were considered too mean to be killed 
by a Big Knife. He had therefore decided to take 
away their masculine garments, clothe them in the 
appropriate garb of squaws, and then, since women 

273 



A History of the 

could not hunt, he would give them a plentiful supply 
of food and send them home. 

The punishment thus awarded them was worse 
than death to these Indians, and when the irons were 
taken from them a chief came forward with a belt of 
wampum and a pipe of peace; but Clark refused to 
listen to his words, saying that he would not treat with 
squaws. This impressed the guilty Indians so deeply 
that after a few minutes consultation, it was decided 
to offer two of their number as a sacrifice to clear away 
the disgrace they had brought upon themselves. Two 
youths volunteered to die for the rest, and walking 
to the center of the council, they sat down, covered 
their heads with their blankets, and silently awaited 
the stroke of the tomahawk. 

The triumph of the Long Knives was now com- 
pleted. Going to these youths Clark raised them up, 
and told them he was glad to find that two men and 
chiefs were to be found among those he had supposed 
to be squaws only. He was therefore able to treat 
with the others through them. 

A peace that probably bound all who were present 
at the council, (though, as usual, not their fellow 
tribesmen), was concluded, and the name of Clark 
attained a fame through the Northwest that was better 
for the preservation of peace than the presence of many 
soldiers. 

The most trying part of Clark's work, however, 
was yet to be done. Vincennes had surrendered at the 
request of Father Gibault, and Captain Leonard Helm 
had been sent there to take command. The news of all 
the changes wrought in the Illinois country by Clark's 

274 





COL. GEORGE CROGHAN. 

Son of Maj. William Croghan of the Revolution. His mother a 

sister of Gen. George Rogers Clark. Received a medal 

from Congress for distinguished services. 



Mississippi Valley. 

invasion reached Detroit while Colonel Hamilton was 
meditating an expedition to the forks of the Ohio, and 
he at once turned his energies to Vincennes instead. 

Colonel Hamilton himself took command of a force 
with which, on October 7, 1778, he left Detroit. It 
included thirty-six British regulars under two lieuten- 
ants, forty-five French volunteers under Captain La- 
motte, and militiamen that brought his white force 
up to 179. The Indians at first numbered sixty-nine, 
but they were afterwards increased to 500. 

Crossing Lake Erie to the Maumee River, Hamil- 
ton poled up that stream past the site of the present 
city of Toledo to the carrying place, nine miles long, 
that crossed the height of land where Fort Wayne, 
Indiana, now stands. The portages ended in what the 
French called a flae — or swampy lake, made by a beaver 
dam across Le Petite Riviere — a tributary of the Wa- 
bash that had little water in it below the beaver dam. 
The Indians and whites alike had preserved the 
beavers living in this flae. By opening the dam a suffi- 
cient amount of water was released to carry Hamilton's 
flotilla down to the deep water of the Wabash; and 
when the expedition was gone the beavers promptly 
repaired the dam, and filled the lake again, ready for 
use of the next expedition. 

At this time Capt. Helm, commanding at Vincennes, 
had but one American in the fort, a private soldier 
named Moses Henry. He had to depend on the French 
militia entirely. He had a scouting party of the French 
up the Wabash, at the time, but Hamilton captured the 
party, and on December 17, the overwhelming British 
force entered Vincennes. The poor little Frenchmen 

275 



A History of the 

promptly went over to the invaders, and Helm was 
obliged to surrender. Nevertheless he did it in good 
frontier style. Placing "a loaded cannon at the open 
gate" of the fort, as Hamilton advanced, Capt. Helm 
stood by the gun with a lighted match, and" com- 
manded the British to halt. Hamilton demanded the 
surrender of the garrison. Helm refused and asked 
for terms. Hamilton replied that they should have the 
honors of war, and the terms were accepted. The 
comical aspect of the garrison, consisting of one officer 
and one soldier, marching out of the fort between lines 
of disgusted Indians on one side and British soldiers 
on the other, is happily illustrated in Gay's History of 
the United States, (Winsor). 

When Hamilton reached Vincennes, Clark had 
about I GO Americans with whom to hold the Illinois 
country against this hair-buying invader, who 
now had a force of more than 600. Had 
Hamilton been half as courageous and resource- 
ful as Clark, the British flag would have been 
flying from every post in the region very 
quickly. But the fact is Hamilton had been obliged 
to drive his boats through ice, during his descent of 
the Wabash, and the winter rains and winds of the 
region had seemed to search the marrow of his bones. 
A seat by an open fireplace was much more to his 
liking that an expedition to Kaskaskia. Kaskaskia 
could wait till the orioles came to weave hanging nests 
on the tips of the white elm branches. He sent most 
of his Indians to their wigwams, and most of his militia 
to Detroit, without even trying to do so much as cut 
off Clark's communications with Kentucky. He re- 

276 



M ississipp i Valley . 

tained for a garrison thirty-four British regulars, forty 
Detroit Frenchmen, and twelve white associates of the 
Indians — men fit to send on expeditions for scalping 
women and children. In fact, while Hamilton neg- 
lected to place a force where Clark's communication 
with the American settlements would be cut off, he 
repeatedly sent out bands of Indians in charge of these 
white men to raid, with fire and scalping knife, such 
lone home-makers as could be found at work in the 
wilderness, unsuspicious of danger. In nothing that 
Col. Hamilton did during the American Revolution is 
his character more accurately portrayed than in his 
preferring scalp-hunting raids to a war-like attack on 
Clark's line of communications. 

And in nothing that Clark ever did was his charac- 
ter as an American frontiersman set forth better than 
in his work after Hamilton came to Vincennes. For 
while Hamilton sat down to plan the uprising of 
every Indian tribe from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, 
Clark planned to attack Hamilton. 

Clark saw that he was in great danger at Kaskaskia, 
and to defend his post he determined to attack the in- 
vaders while they were yet at Vincennes. He did this 
in spite of his reasonable belief that the British force 
far outnumbered his, and in spite of a perilous lack 
of ammunition. 

A big row boat was built and armed with two 
four-pounder cannon and two one-pounders — swivels 
— and manned with forty men. She was named the 
Willing. Her he sent around by the Ohio to serve 
as a ferry and a gunboat in the attack. Then he called 
for volunteers among the Frenchmen, and the boldness 

277 



A History of the 

of the plan so roused the enthusiasm of the French 
girls that scarcely a French young man dared refuse 
to enlist, and on February 7, 1779, he marched from 
Kaskaskia at the head of 170 men. 

In the annals of American warfare there are no 
accounts of such another expedition as this. The 
weather had turned warm, the snow and ice had melted, 
and nearly the whole route, 240 miles long, was 
flooded. 

Clark himself might face a journey like that with 
composure. With his iron will its hardships might 
be turned to pleasure, but the appalling task was to 
make the hardships seem pleasures to his men, of whom 
many had been induced to enlist by a passing excite- 
ment. Yet here and elsewhere the man was equal to 
the occasion. He led the way. He kept many hunters 
out to bring in game, and he had the game served in 
banquets. At night they kindled huge fires and feasted 
and danced and sang songs. 

At the end of the week they reached the Little 
Wabash and found the country flooded three feet deep 
far beyond the channel. But a boat was made by hollow- 
ing out a big log, and some men were ferried across 
to a place beyond the channel where they could be land- 
ed in water not more than waist deep. There they built 
a scaffold on which the baggage was loaded as the pi- 
rogue brought it over, and finally the pack horses came 
swimming across. Three days was consumed in cross- 
ing. The horses were repacked as they stood belly deep 
beside the scaffold, and then away the command all 
splashed through water and mud, waist high most of 
tlie time. Thev had found nothing worse than mud 

278 



Mississippi Valley. 

for beds, hitherto, but on February 17, when Embar- 
ras river was reached, they had to huddle on the top 
of a low hillside that did not afford room for them to 
make camp. 

To increase their misery, the game had abandoned 
the overflowed land, and moreover they were so near 
Vincennes that the firing of a gun was likely to give 
warning to the British. 

In fact at sunrise on the i8th, they heard the morn- 
ing gun in Vincennes. The men began making pi- 
rogues, that day, and for two days they worked on 
the low ridge of ground. But in the meantime they 
had no food, and the spirits of the French volunteers 
sank until they begged Clark to return. However, be- 
fore the night of the 20th, five Frenchmen from Vin- 
cennes were captured, and they gave the cheering news 
that no alarm had been raised in the town. The same 
day, a hunter, taking chances, killed a deer that gave 
every body a bit of meat, (the last food they had on 
the march), and in the morning the force was ferried 
across the river, leaving the horses behind. 

Having landed on a low mound they set forward, 
(Clark leading), and marched for three miles through 
water that was up to their chins, part of the time, 
while a drummer boy "did good service by making 
the men laugh with his pranks and his jokes." Then 
they camped on a low ridge for the night — a most 
wretched night; though a worse was to come. 

The next morning there was work for the boats, 
for the men were giving out under their prolonged 
hardships. The exhausted were put in the boats and 
then Clark, having painted his face Indian fashion, 

279 



A History of the 

gave the war whoop and led the way once more, while 
some of the bolder men began to sing a favorite song 
to cheer the others. 

But neither war whoops nor songs could strengthen 
the famished men, and when at night they came to a 
ridge six miles from Vincennes many were so weak that 
they fell to the ground. 

To add to the misery of the starving host, the 
weather turned cold and ice formed a half inch thick 
over all the overflowed meadows around them. 

Strange to say, however, no man died, and when 
daylight came they marched on once more. A prairie 
four miles wide that was now an ice-covered lake, 
waist deep, lay before them, but the strong broke the 
ice for the others, and the boats were paddled to and 
fro swiftly, to pick up those who fell by the way. A 
guard of twenty-five men, with orders to put any one 
to death who might try to desert, brought up the rear. 
And so they struggled on until an island was reached 
in the midst of a forest two miles from Vincennes. On 
the way across, a canoe which some squaws were pad- 
dling toward the town, was taken, and in it they found 
a quarter of a buffalo, some buffalo fat, and some corn 
— enough to make a good soup for all. 

This swallowed, the forces overhauled their rifles 
and what with the sup of broth, and the prospect of a 
fight, the little band became as enthusiastic, once more, 
as it had been at the start. Some scouts sent out 
brought in a youth from Vincennes, who said that 200 
Indians had just arrived; the British force was now 
very much larger than that of Clark. But instead of 
growing disheartened, Clark became the bolder. He 

280 



Mississippi Valley. 

had hoped, theretofore, to surprise the garrison, but now 
he determined not only to approach openly, but to re- 
lease this prisoner with a letter to the people an- 
nouncing his coming. The friends of the Americans 
were told to remain in their houses, while others were 
urged to go into the fort with the "hair-buyer General," 
and "fight like men." 

Resting his men by their fires till sundown, Clark 
marched from the forest into a prairie in which were a 
number of low hills and ridges. The prairie was with- 
In plain view of the settlement, but by waiting until 
night was at hand, Clark concealed his force. Ham- 
ilton had seen the camp fires of the previous night, and 
he had sent out a scouting party, but the country was 
impassable to such men as they were, and they reported 
that it was impassable for everybody. Hamilton did. 
not so much as know that the Americans were at handi 
when Clark marched from the woods. 

But in the meantime the confident words of the let- 
ter sent to the French inhabitants had turned them to 
support the Americans, while the letter and extraordin- 
ary boldness of Clark's raid had turned the hearts of 
the Indians to water, and they fled; save only a few 
who determined to join Clark, 

At 7 o'clock on the night of March 23, 1779, Clark 
entered Vincennes and was welcomed by the Creoles, 
who first of all gave him a much needed supply of 
powder and lead. Fifty men were immediately posted 
as guards, and then the remainder approached the fort 
and opened fire. 

Clark in his memoirs says that knowing Capt. 
Helm's habits well, and knowing, too, the building in 

281 



A History of the 

which Helm as a prisoner resided, the attacking force 
was ordered to shoot into the stick and mud chimney 
of that house in such fashion as to knock a shower of 
dirt and soot down the chimney. The men did this 
with glee, and the result was that the tumbling dirt 
fell into and spoiled a brew of fine toddy which Capt. 
Helm was preparing as usual for the evening. This 
story seems incredible and "childish" to one modern 
writer of repute, but the truth is, it was just what the 
frontiersmen would have done under the circumstances. 
I have known the woodsmen of the Maumee swamps 
to do just such tricks in the days before the civil war. 
Horse play during a siege may be childish but it is com- 
mon enough, and not zvithout good effects on the men. 

As soon as daylight permitted, the fire of the back- 
woodsmen was directed at the loop holes. There were 
several small cannon and swivels in the upper stories 
of the block houses on the corners of the forts — enough 
to knock the village to splinters, in fact — but the Brit- 
ish could not serve them. The British regulars had 
courage enough, but the volunteers weakened as they 
saw man after man shot dead in trying to serve the 
guns. Here, as usual, the ability to shoot straight was 
on the American side, and was the chief factor in the 
fight. 

To Clark's demand for surrender Hamilton re- 
plied early in the morning by requesting a truce of three 
days. Clark, of course, refused this, but he took ad- 
vantage of the interval made by the request to give his 
men an ample meal — the first they had eaten in six 
days. 

In the afternoon finding that he was losing men 
282 



Mississippi Valley. 

steadily, while inflicting no apparent damage on the 
Americans, Hamilton sent word that he would arrange 
for capitulation, and then he came out and met Clark 
in the church to discuss the matter. He had terms for 
surrender already written, but Clark refused them, and 
in the course of the discussion accused Hamilton of 
raiding the settlements in order to kill women and 
children, and said that one reason for rejecting the of- 
fered terms was to enable the American frontiersmen 
to take the fort by storm, and lawfully avenge the in- 
fernal work of the British partisans. To this charge 
Hamilton said he was not to blame for carrying out 
the orders of his superiors — a statement that was whol- 
ly untrue, since he had urged his superiors to adopt 
the raiding policy. 

Curiously enough while the two officers talked, 
a party of Indians who had been on a successful raid 
against the home-makers, came boldly into town, know- 
ing nothing of the presence of the Americans, and they 
waved aloft the trophies of their success as they ap- 
proached. The frontiersmen at once fell upon them, 
killed two, wounded three and took six alive. The 
six were then led to a spot on the bank of the river 
where they were in plain view of the garrison, and 
were there tomahawked and thrown into the stream. 
Although this was done while Hamilton and Clark 
were in the church, Hamilton afterwards when safe at 
home, deliberately wrote that Clark wielded the toma- 
hawk that killed these marauders. 

Eventually, Clark agreed to accept the surrender of 
the fort on condition that the garrison should become 
prisoners of war. Then seventy-nine white men 

283 



A History of the 

marched out. Of these Clark was obliged to parole 
all but Hamilton and twenty-seven others, who were 
sent to Virginia. In Virginia, Hamilton was kept in 
close confinement, for a long time, because of his 
*'eager zest," as Roosevelt calls it, in the "unmention- 
able atrocities" of the Indians and Tories whom he sent 
against the home makers. But, at the request of Wash- 
ington, who was ever anxious that even such prisoners 
as Hamilton should be treated mildly, he was released 
and exchanged. 

The British power had been forever overthrown 
in the Illinois country. A force that was coming from 
Detroit with large quantities of supplies and Indian 
goods, was captured, and the plunder shared among 
the men of the expedition. A plan for uniting the 
northern and southern Indians in an effort to annihilate 
the Americans in the Ohio watershed, on which Ham- 
ilton had pondered all winter, was ended. 

Clark returned to the Falls of the Ohio, and Vir- 
ginia eventually gave him and his men 150,000 acres 
of land on the north side of the falls. The Virginia 
legislature also thanked him and sent him a sword. 

Work that gave to the United States a territory 
in every way great enough for a nation in itself was 
accomplished, although it had not been carried out as 
fully as Clark planned it. For Clark purposed going 
to Detroit, and would have succeeded in doing so had 
men and means been given him. One feature, however, 
of what he did do remains to be described, and it has 
been left for the end of the chapter in order to empha- 
size the difference betwen the heroes and the politi- 
cians of the American Revolution. 

284 




COL. FRANCIS VIGO. 

A firm friend of Gen. George Rogers Clark, and who loaned Clark 
^i2,ooofor the conduct of his notable e.xpedition. 



Mississippi Valley. 

The £1,200 with which George Rogers Clark 
started for the IlHnois country was necessarily ex- 
hausted before he had arrived. In his extremity, he 
borrowed tens of thousands of dollars in coin, at one 
time and another, of Francois Vigo, a St. Louis trader. 
A part of this was repaid to Vigo by drafts on Oliver 
Pollock, the patriotic American merchant of New 
Orleans, but "when Vigo died at Terre Haute, in 1836, 
neglected and childless, something like $20,000 (coin) 
which he had paid to Clark remained unsettled." His 
heirs strove without success to get this money, until 
1872, when Congress referred the matter to the Court 
of Claims, and the Court decided in favor of the heirs. 
Then Congress appealed the case, though in vain, and 
in 1876 the country paid $50,000 to the speculators 
who had bought out the heirs, (Winsor). And Oliver 
Pollock, whose patriotism brought him to poverty, was 
treated in the same shameful manner. 

Let the people — the pessimists who think that our 
legislators in "the old days" were models of honor and 
virtue — consider well this further fact. In spite of the 
magnificent service he rendered his country, Clark 
was unable to obtain a commission in the Continental 
Army. Congress refused to grant him one. But 
James Wilkinson, the infamous traitor, having the skill 
to handle the politicians, became the head of the Ameri- 
can army. 



28; 





GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

This portrait is by Geoffroy, and published in Paris 
Washington was then 56 years of age. 




XVI 



AS THE WAR DRAGGED ON. 

Aid From the Spaniards at New Orleans — When the 
Succcessor of Hamilton at Detroit "Expressly Di- 
rected" the Savages to Make War on the Frontier — • 
Robertson's Settlement on the Site of Nashville — • 
There Were 250 Men in the Company, and 229 of 
Them Died by Violence Within Twelve Years — 
Origin of a Small-pox Epidemic Among the Indians 
— The Pluck of Nancy Gomer. 

An important feature of the Mississippi Valley 
work during the war of the Revolution was displayed 
at New Orleans. On January i, 1777, Don Bernado 
de Galvez became Governor of Louisiana. Though 
but twenty-one years old, he was a youth of unusual 
ability and of most remarkable energy. 

As his first important official act, Galvez seized, at 
287 



A History of the 

New Orleans, eleven British ships, all richly laden, 
and confiscated them. The ships had been allowed to 
come there by the previous governor, (Unzaga), but 
their presence was contrary to law. 

Then when Oliver Pollock was appointed agent 
of the American Congress, a little later, he was per- 
mitted to buy and ship war materials up the river, and 
Galvez eventually loaned him $6,000 to forward the 
business. 

Among the shipments made by Pollock may be 
mentioned, as a sample of all, 9,000 pounds of powder 
in 150 kegs which, under the charge of Lieutenant 
Linn, was conveyed up the river, and delivered to Col. 
William Crawford, at Wheeling, May 2, 1777. One 
gets an idea of what delays river commerce suffered, 
in those days, from the statement that it took Linn 
more than seven months to make this trip. It was after 
this perilous journey up the river that Linn went to 
Harrodsburg where, as Clark's diary noted, he was 
married with "great merriment." 

In consequence of the up-river trade of the Ameri- 
cans the British in Florida strengthened their forces 
along the Bayou Manchac, and the Mississippi, above 
Spanish Territory, The sloop of war Sylph, with a 
crew of 150 men was stationed at Manchac, while fifty 
rangers were camped on shore. The garrison at Nat- 
chez was maintained by 200 men. These, by the aid 
of British spies in New Orleans, made the transport 
of supplies up the river so perilous that Pollock urged 
Congress to send a force to sweep the river to New 
Orleans. Congress did not do it, and much trouble fol- 
lowed the failure to accept Pollock's advice; for Galvez 

288 



Mississippi Valley. 

went up the river, after learning that Spain had de- 
clared war against England, (May 3, 1779), and on 
September 21, 1779, captured Natchez. The capture 
of Mobile and Pensacola followed, and thus all the 
Florida of that day passed under Spanish control. 
What would have happened had Florida remained 
under British control is a matter of curious speculation. 

As the time passed in the Ohio valley, it became 
apparent that George Rogers Clark should have been 
enabled to go to Detroit. Arent Schuyler de Peyster 
succeeded Hamilton, at that post, and he sicked on the 
red blood hounds, as Hamilton had done. 

In an ofificial report to Lord George Germaine, 
(quoted by Roosevelt), he said: "It would be endless 
and difficult to enumerate to your Lordship the parties 
that are continually employed upon the back settle- 
ments. From the Illinois country to the Frontier of 
New York there is a continual succession. The per- 
petual terror and losses of the inhabitants will, I hope, 
operate powerfully in our favor." 

In connection with this, Roosevelt says, on the au- 
thority of the original documents now in Canada : 
"The savages were expressly directed to make war on 
non-combatants." 

The British were trying to "disgust" the inhabi- 
tants of the frontier precisely as the French had tried 
to "disgust" them during the years immediately fol- 
lowing the defeat of Braddock. 

Books have been filled with the tales of horrors and 
heroisms that grew out of these raids. One of the 
most successful was made in June, 1780, by Capt. 
Henry Bird, who, on the 22d, with 600 Indians and a 

. 289 



A History of the 

few white scalpers, captured Riddle's and Martin's 
Stations, on the south fork of the Licking. In raising 
men for a return raid into Ohio, George Rogers Clark 
arbitrarily closed the land office at Harrodsburg, and 
drafted four-fifths of the men who were there to file 
claims. In this way he secured 970 men, and going 
to the Indian villages of Chillicothe and Piqua, (Pick- 
away Towns), he burned them and brought back sev- 
enteen scalps. The work had no real influence on the 
conflict, but it seems worth mention because it por- 
trays the dash of Clark. 

In the meantime, however, the people on the head 
waters of the Tennessee had done notable work by es- 
tablishing a settlement on the site of Nashville. One 
Spencer was the first permanent settler there. He went 
there early in 1778 with a party of skin hunters, and 
when the party broke up he and one companion re- 
mained. Eventually the companion decided to go and 
Spencer broke his own knife in two in order to give a 
blade to the companion who had none. To share a 
knife blade was the final frontier test of friendship. 
During the ensuing winter Spencer lived in a hollow 
sycamore tree. 

In 1779 James Robertson, of Watauga, found the 
deep woods calling him irresistibly, and gathering a 
company that included Col. John Donelson, whose 
daughter Rachael became the wife of Andrew Jackson, 
he went to where Spencer was living and established a 
settlement. 

The party started in thirty boats down the Holston 
on December 22, 1779, but the frosts, (that was the 
"hard winter") held them at Cloud Creek until Febru- 

290 



Mississippi Valley. 

ary 2y, 1780. The story of the voyage is remarkable. 
On a flat boat containing twenty-eight people a number 
became sick with the small-pox. The boat followed at 
a considerable distance behind the flotilla. The Indians 
who watched the expedition from the bank saw this 
defenceless boat far in the rear and made haste to go 
out with canoes to attack it. It was an easy victory, for 
^hey soon killed or Gaptured all on board, but for 
months thereafter the small-pox raged among the 
Creeks and Cherokees, carrying off multitudes. 

At another place the Indians stood on the bluffs 
and fired on the boats. When the crew of one boat fled 
below deck a young woman named Nancy Gomer took 
the helm and steered the boat to safety. She did not 
flinch, even when a bullet pierced her thigh, and it was 
not till her mother saw blood soaking through her 
skirts that anyone knew she had been hit. 

The party named their settlement Nashborough 
after Governor A. Nash of North Carolina. 'Three 
hundred miles of forest separated it from all neighbor- 
ly succor," but on May i, 1780, the people gathered and 
agreed on a form of self government, much like that 
created by the Watauga people in earlier days. The 
compact was signed by 250 men, and it is noted that 
in twelve years from that time no more than twenty 
of the 250 remained alive, and all but one had died by 
violence. They were picked off by the Indians here and 
there, as they hunted for game, or worked in the 
fields, or went to spring or stream for water. They 
fell in skirmishes where parties dashed from the fort 
to wreak vengeance on the red marauders. The whites 
held the land, but they paid a frightful price for it. 

291 




WILLIAM TENN. 

From a painting from life, in the possession of the Penn. Hist. Sc 
made in 1666. 




XVII 

GNADENHUTTEN. 

The Most Significant Fact in the History of the Red 
Americans Is, that a Number of Delawares Who 
Were as Cruel and Bloodthirsty as Any Others, 
Were by Patient Efforts Converted into Christians 
— Driven from Pennsylvania by White Christians 
and Received by Red Heathens in Ohio — Slaught- 
ered as They Sang Their Christian Hymns — The 
Blackest Crime Known to American History — Fron- 
tier Desperadoes Inspired by the Thought of Indians 
Who Would Not Fight. 

Because they were willing to obey the Divine com- 
mand, "Seek peace and pursue it," the Delaware In- 
dians, who had been converted by the United Brethren 
preachers, (and have since been known in history as 
the Moravian Indians), left their homes among the 

293 



* A History of the 

whites in western Pennsylvania, in 1772, and re- 
moved to the wilderness on the Muskingum river. A 
settlement called Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring) 
was established early in the planting season. In the 
course of the year another was made nearly ten miles 
away from Schoenbrunn and named Gnadenhutten, 
while a third called Salem was built near Gnadenhut- 
ten. Gnadenhutten means "Tents of Grace." 

The Christian white people had refused to allow 
the Christian Indians to live in peace in their original 
homes in Pennsylvania. This is an important state- 
ment. There is no record that either Christians, or 
members of churches called Christians, made any open 
attack on the Moravian Indians, but the white Christ- 
ians, (excepting the Quakers, of course), made no 
effort to protect their red brethren in Christ from the 
assaults of other people, and they are therefore to be 
held guilty of the crime that drove the red Christians 
into the wilderness. 

But when the Christian Indians reached the Mus- 
kingum, the heathen Indians bade them welcome and 
gave them peace until after the Christian white people 
became involved in the War of the Revolution. These 
Indians, who believed the Christian doctrines as 
taught by the United Brethren, having peace, built 
excellent houses and good churches. They planted 
sufficient ground and raised good crops. They pros- 
pered. They made rapid progress in the simpler arts 
of civilization. 

It is important to keep in mind that these Mora- 
vians were able-bodied Delawares, and that before 
they were converted they had all the superstitions, pro- 

294 



Mississippi Valley. 

pensities, instincts and ambitions of other wild, heathen 
Delawares. They had had as much pleasure in raid- 
ing their enemies and torturing prisoners at the stake 
as any other Delawares had. 

Here, then, is the most significant fact in the his- 
tory of red Americans. By the patient, persistent ef- 
forts of a few sincere and energetic teachers those wild 
and cruel hunters had been changed into peace-loving, 
stump-grubbing farmers. The perfection of this 
change of ambitions and manners of life is written on 
the pages of history in words of fire to proclaim for- 
ever that the infinite pains and sorrows of the Indian 
wars and raids were all due to the greed and the neg- 
lect of the white race. Most short-sighted was the 
greed, most woeful the neglect. 

"Money talks" much more effectively than either 
sentiment or religion appeals. Therefore let it be re- 
membered that the losses inflicted by any one of scores 
of hundreds of Indian raids amounted to more than the 
whole expense of converting all these Indians who are 
now known as Moravians. 

The facts about these Indians were well known on 
the frontier, and in Lord Dunmore's war they were 
treated with kindly consideration by both parties to the 
fighting. But as the war of the Revolution grew hot, 
trouble came to the "Tents of Grace." The British 
officials at Detroit, in their eagerness to incite all In- 
dians to make war on the American frontier, strove 
first to bribe these Christian Indians to take up the 
hatchet. Failing in that, they sicked on the heathen In- 
dians to destroy the Moravian settlements, and scatter 
the inhabitants, knowing that a Christian, when hun- 

295 



A History of the 

gry and naked, might be more easily persuaded to 
devilish deeds than when in a home of peace and plenty. 
White men who called themselves Christians, and who 
m time of peace would have given money cheerfully 
in aid of missionary enterprise, were made so brutal 
by the passions of war that they deliberately plotted 
to compel by force the Christian Indians into the per- 
petration of hellish deeds. 

At the behest of the Detroit authorities the savage 
Indians, when raiding the American settlements, passed 
by the way of Gnadenhutten — the Tents of Grace — 
and compelled the peace lovers to entertain and supply 
them with food. And on returning from raids, care 
was taken to lay the trail through Gnadenhutten in 
order to make the suffering Americans believe that the 
peace lovers had done, the mischief. 

But the whites were not deceived. The red Christ- 
ians and their white teachers soon came to feel a strong 
sympathy for the raided Americans, and a stronger 
dislike for the raiding British and Indians. It was 
impossible to avoid supplying the raiders with food, 
without a fight, and fight these red Christians would 
not. But a time came when their humanity bade them 
to warn the Americans that raids impended, and thus 
many a woman and many a child escaped to safety who 
would have been slaughtered by the raiders. 

And this humane work was done at great peril, 
for the raiders were sure to learn about it, and sooner 
or later, the humane messengers were sure to be taken 
and slaughtered. In fact, the savage Delawares came 
to look upon the Christians as traitors to the tribe, even 
when the Christians refused to take up the tomahawk. 

296 



Mississippi Valley. 

How they felt when they learned that the Christians 
were warning the whites whenever raids impended 
may easily be imagined. 

As the dangers of these red Christians became 
known among the Americans, efforts were made by the 
regular army officers to induce them to remove within 
the American lines. Col. John Gibson, (he who took 
down the words of the famous chief Logan), comman- 
ded at Pittsburg, and was particularly earnest in per- 
suading them. The Wyandotte chief Half King said : 

"Two powerful, angry and merciless gods stand 
ready, opening their jaws wide against each other; you 
are sitting down between both, and are thus in danger 
of being devoured by the teeth of either one or the 
other, or both. * * * Consider your young people, your 
wives and your children * * * for here they must 
perish. I therefore take you by the hand, lift you up, 
and place you in or near my dwelling, where you will 
be safe and dwell in peace. * * * Take also your 
teachers with you, and worship God in the place to 
which I shall lead you, as you have been accustomed 
to do." 

Both Col. Gibson and Half King were sincerely de- 
sirous of protecting these Indians. The red heathen, 
Half King, was thus kind to them though he knew they 
had previously warned the whites when red raiders 
were coming. Gibson was urgent because he knew 
that the frontier desperadoes were beginning to look 
toward Gnadenhutten. The fact that the Christian In- 
dians would not fight was inspiring to the desperadoes. 
At Gnadenhutten blood might be shed and scalps taken 
without danger. 

297 



A History of the 

But in spite of warning, and in spite of a certain 
knowledge of impending danger, these Christians re- 
fused to leave their homes. Their determination, was 
in the mind of one honored historian, due to their 
"blind fatuity." 

This is a matter of the utmost importance. Look 
at it without prejudice. It was not "blind fatuity." 
It was not "blind follyj" that kept them in their homes. 
It zvas a sublime faith in the Christ whom they wor- 
shipped that held them there in spite of danger. There 
are no stories known to books so touching as those 
that describe the faith of wild men, red or black. The 
missionaries and their wards believed that God would 
protect them. It is a fact worth remembering, es- 
pecially by those who, once a week, with bobbing heads, 
mumble some sort of creed, and then live, the devil 
knows how, the rest of the time. 

Early in September, 1781, a party of British and 
Indians, numbering 140, led by Simon Girty, came 
to these settlements and carried away all the Christ- 
ians to Sandusky. A miserable winter followed, and 
food became so scarce that many parties of Christ- 
ians went back to Gnadenhutten to gather corn that 
had been left standing in the fields. 

In some way the white men of the western coun- 
ties of Pennsylvania and Virginia learned that these 
parties of corn gatherers tarried about their fields for 
days at a stretch, before returning to famine-stricken 
Sandusky. At Gnadenhutten were Indian men, women 
and children who would not fight, even if arms were 
given to them. The opportunity for the cowards and 
assassins of the frontier had come. Indian scalps 

298 



Mississippi Valley. 

could now be obtained without danger to the scalpers. 
To get the scalps of Indians who would not fight, nine- 
ty frontiersmen gathered at Mingo Bottom, (two and' 
a half miles below the modern Steubenville, Ohio), 
to organize for the raid. It was not an association 
of frontier outlaws and desperadoes only; men of the 
first social rank at the frontier were among the number. 
They met by night to avoid publicity, for they feared 
that the humane Col. John Gibson, commanding at 
Pittsburg, would send a squad of regular army sol- 
diers to stop them. To their thirst for innocent blood 
they added at the very inception of the movement, de- 
liberate treachery, for they sent word to those whites 
who might oppose the raid that the expedition was 
going to bring the Moravians to Pittsburg for safety. 
It is important to keep this treachery in mind. 

Col. David Williamson of the Pennsylvania militia 
eagerly took charge of the raiders. If there were 
grades of depravity in this gang, Williamson was of the 
lowest grade. Doddridge, who was Williamson's per- 
sonal friend, says that naturally Williamson was "not 
cruel," and that to "murder a prisoner" was against 
his natural feelings; but he was guilty of "too easy 
compliance with popular prejudice." 

The fact of the matter is he was a politician of the 
meanest class, and to curry favor among the most de- 
graded voters in the region, he smothered his humanity, 
and took the lead of these raiders. It is not a little 
shocking to find writers who suppose they help Wil- 
liamson's case by showing that he was naturally hu- 
mane. 

Col. John Gibson, who was commanding officer 
299 



A History of the 

at Pittsburg, learned that an expedition was going. 
He sent orders, imploring messages as well, but was 
unable to restrain the gang, and he therefore sent a 
warning to the IMoravians. The Moravians, however, 
had faith in their God, and they therefore remained 
harvesting their corn, for the benefit of their hungry- 
brethren at Sandusky. 

Williamson and his followers started for Gnaden- 
hutten on the third of March, 1782. A Christian In- 
dian whom they found in the woods a mile from the 
settlement, (a half breed, the son of a white Christian 
named Schebosch), they chopped to pieces while he 
begged for life. But when they reached Gnadenhutten 
they went among the harvesters in the most friendly 
manner, and expressed regret and pity "on account of 
the mischief done by the British and hostile savages." 
"They likewise spoke freely" of the Moravian char- 
acter, and expressed kindly appreciation of the fact 
that they had "never taken the least share in the war." 

Finally the white men said they had come to con- 
duct the Moravians to Pittsburg, to get them out of 
reach of the British and the savages. Feeling grateful 
for the apparent kindness of these white men the In- 
dians delivered up such arms and goods as they had, 
that the whites might care for them, and then went 
to the woods and brought packages of things that they 
had concealed there. 

Meantime the whites sent a party over to the nearby 
Christian settlement called Salem, where other Mora- 
vians were found and enticed to Gnadenhutten. On the 
trail, this party of whites "feigned great piety," and 
discussed Christian doctrine with apparent sincerity. 

300 




MONUMENT TO THE INPIANS MURDERED AT GNADENHUTTfiN. 



Mississippi l^allcy. 

Having gathered all the red Christians within reach, 
together at Gnadenhutten, and having deprived them 
of every weapon down to their pocket knives, the 
whites suddenly fell upon them with thongs, and bound 
them all. 

The white men then gathered in council to deter- 
mine how to kill the Indians. Eighteen of the ninety 
were now sick of the part they had taken in the affair, 
and after protesting against the killing of any of the 
Christians, left for Pittsburg, taking one Indian boy 
with them. The other white men gave the Indians 
until the next day to prepare for death. 

The Indians passed the night in prayer, in singing 
hymns the missionaries had taught them, and, in spite 
of their doom, they praised God for His loving kind- 
ness and blessings. 

When morning came they were all — men, women 
and children, to the number of ninety-six — bound to- 
gether by their hands, two and two. A woman called 
Christina fell on her knees before Colonel Williamson 
and begged for her life, but the Colonel, with his eyes 
on the voters around him, told her he could do nothing 
for her. 

When bound, the men were driven into one house, 
and the women and children, who numbered thirty- 
four, were driven into another. Singing and praying 
aloud all marched to their doom. And when they were 
within the houses, the white men waiting there, toma- 
hawked and scalped them. "The voices of singing and 
of supplication failing one by one, the silence that fell 
upon the place" at last told when the slaughter was 
ended. 

301 



A History of the 

One lad of fifteen years was so little hurt that he 
managed to slip his bonds and drop into the cellar, 
where he lay concealed while the blood ran down be- 
tween the floor boards in streams. Another boy sur- 
vived. He was struck on the head with a tomahawk, 
stunned and scalped, but he lived to describe the hor- 
rors through which he had passed, although the mob 
held a jubilee and set fire to the two slaughter houses 
before they left for home. 

The blackest and most disheartening crime known 
to American history was the slaughter of the inno- 
cents at Gnadenhutten — the Tents of Grace. To at- 
tempt to palliate or extenuate it is to insult the intelli- 
gence of the reader and to add to his indignation. 

Yet I venture to note that these Indians were not 
burned alive. It was reserved for degenerates of the 
end of the Nineteenth Century — members of the white 
race — to burn at the stake individuals of a less-devel- 
oped people. 

This is not to express a lack of faith in the devel- 
opment of Christian civilization, but to point out that 
many facts indicate a progress of degeneracy among 
the few, side by side with the progress of enlightened 
humanity among the many. 



302 




COL. AAK(.)N OGDKN. 

Aide in the expedition of Gen. John Sullivan against the Indians, etc. 
Portrait painted and engraved by A. B. Durand. 




XVIII 



FIGHTING THAT FOLLOWED GNADENHUTTEN. 

A Second White Raid in Search of Scalps of Indians 
Who Would Not Fight, and the Result— A Need- 
less Retreat that Became a Panic — The Whites Who 
Remained Calm when They Heard of the Slaughter 
of the Innocents at Gnadenhutten, Felt "a. Profound 
Sensation" when the Story of Crawford's Death 
Was Told — But only Quakers and Moravians so 
Much as Observed that Injustice to an Inferior Race 
Was Unprofitable. 

A peculiarly disheartening feature of the Gnaden- 
hutten crime is the fact that the white people who were 
too humane to take part in it were yet unwilling to 
punish the perpetrators, or even to ostracise them. 
The scalps of the murdered Christians were flaunted 
on the streets of Pittsburg. The officers of the Con- 

303 



A History of the 

tinental army and some few other leading men, did 
express their condemnation, but the greater part of 
the people openly applauded the act. War had gener- 
ated a species of murderous insanity, even among a 
people naturally humane, while the naturally vicious 
were incited to emulation. An expedition of 480 mil- 
itia men from Pennsylvania and Virginia was organ- 
ized to go to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, then the tem- 
porary home of the remaining Christian Delawares. 
The fact that the Christian Delawares were to be raided 
was enough to induce many of the Williamson gang 
to volunteer for this expedition, and others who were 
emulous of the Williamson reputation, joined in. 

Mingo Bottom, two and a half miles below Steu- 
benville of the present day, was the place of rendezvous, 
as on the Gnadenhutten expedition. On arrival there, 
the forces, according to custom, elected their com- 
mander. Col. William Crawford and Col. David 
Williamson were the candidates, and although Craw- 
ford held a Continental commission, and was a more 
capable officer, the popularity of Williamson was so 
great that Crawford won by five votes only. William- 
son was, therefore, made second in command. Dr. 
John Knight was the surgeon, and Jonathan Zane one 
of the guides. 

Starting on May 25th, 1782, the command 
marched through the (modern) Ohio counties of 
Jefferson, Harrison, Tuscarawas, Holmes, Ashland, 
Richland and Crawford, and into Wyandot county, 
Ohio. The Sandusky River was reached, three miles 
south of the modern Crestline, on June 2, and the next 
day camp was made near the modern Wyandot. On 

304 



Mississippi Valley. 

the 4th, Upper Sandusky Old Town, an Indian village, 
was found deserted, but the scouts afterwards dis- 
covered a band of Indians. 

It was a prairie country, with groves here and 
there, and the Indians were in a piece of timber on 
rising ground, since known as Battle Island, about 
three and a half miles northeast of the modern Upper 
Sandusky. Simon Girty, Matthew Elliot and Alex- 
ander McKee, the renegades, were with the Indians 
(about 200 in number), the chief of whom was Cap- 
tain Pipe, a noted Delaware. There were also two 
companies of white men from Detroit, under Captain 
William Caldwell, in the grove. On the whole, Craw- 
ford's force was much (perhaps 150) superior in num- 
ber. 

Though composed, in good part, of the most 
wretched material, Crawford's command charged on 
the grove, when ordered, and the Indians fled. But 
once the command was in the shelter of the trees, they 
sat down. It was a time for most earnest pursuit of 
the enemy, but instead of taking any advantage of 
the gain they had made, these worthless vagabonds 
allowed the enemy to rally and draw a line around 
the sheltering grove. 

During that night and all day on the 5th, the In- 
dians fired from the grass, as opportunity offered, and 
toward night of the 5th, they were reinforced by 140 
Shawnees. 

At sight of these fresh warriors, the hearts of the 
Pittsburg mob turned to water. They still out-num- 
bered the enemy, but fighting armed warriors was ver}' 
different from tomahawking bound women and chil- 

305 



A History of the 

dren, and at 9 o'clock at night, on the 5th, Crawford 
formed his men in a body, and began a retreat that 
quickly degenerated into a panic. Singly and in 
squads, the whites scattered over the prairie, and it is 
likely that the whole mob would have been destroyed 
but for the efforts of a lieutenant known as John Rose, 
but who was really Baron de Rosenthal, of Russia. 
He, by heroic efforts and example, rallied 300, and 
keeping them in order, beat off the enemy and escaped. 
Yet even so they would not have escaped but for the 
eagerness of the Indians in pursuing the stragglers. 

Among the stragglers who very nearly escaped 
were Col. Crawford and Dr. John Knight. Both of 
them were captured on the 7th. They were taken to 
Upper Sandusky (the Old Town), thence to a Dela- 
ware town on the Tymochtee, and at 4 o'clock on the 
afternoon of June nth, 1782, Crawford was tied to 
a stake for torture. He had begged Simon Girty,whom 
he well knew, to save him, but Girty said it was im- 
possible. He also implored the Delaware chief, Captain 
Pipe, to spare his life, or at worst, shoot him. To 
this. Captain Pipe replied that if Williamson had been 
taken it might have been done, but the Indians were 
exasperated by the slaughter at Gnadenhutten, and 
nothing could now prevent his death by torture. 

Crawford was naked. His hands were bound 
firmly behind his back, and from the thongs on his 
wrist a stout rope led to the foot of the post — a sap- 
ling, peeled down. This rope was long enough to 
allow him to walk freely around the post. When he 
was secured, the Indians fired their guns, loaded with 
powder only, against him till his skin was full of 

306 



Mississippi Valley. 

burned powder grains from his feet to his neck. They 
punched and beat him with blazing faggots from a fire 
that was some distance from the circle around which 
he could walk. They showered red coals over him 
until at every step his feet were placed upon hot em- 
bers. Finally he fell to the ground, where he was 
scalped, and then hot coals were piled against the place 
from which his scalp had been removed. This drove 
him to his feet once more, but after circling about the 
post again he fell and expired. 

He had been under torture but two hours. As 
compared with the Iroquois, who often tortured their 
victims through three days, these Delawares were mer- 
ciful. 

Dr. John Knight was a witness of the tragedy. 
When it was ended he was sent in charge of one Indian 
toward another village, to be burned, as they told him. 
But the fact that he was guarded by but one Indian, 
and that he readily escaped from his guard, makes 
credible the story that he was allowed to escape in order 
that he might tell how the red men had avenged the 
slaughter of Gnadenhutten. 

A stone monument has been erected on the east 
bank of the Big Tymochtee creek, near Crawford, 
Wyandot county, Ohio, by the Pioneer Association of 
the county, to commemorate the death of Crawford. 

It is recorded that the burning of Crawford created 
"a profound sensation" — "it excited the greatest hor- 
ror" — throughout the country. The people who had 
condoned the merciless slaughter of ninety-four inno- 
cents at Gnadenhutten were horrified to think the In- 
dians would take revenge on the leader of an ex- 

307 



A History of the 

pedition that went to the Sandusky Plains to repeat 
the work done at Gnadenhutten. 

The burning of Crawford was, however, but the 
beginning of the revenge taken by the Indians. John 
Slover, one of the guides, was also captured but es- 
caped (he rode and ran naked through the wilderness, 
with no food but berries and two crawfish to Wheel- 
ing). He was present at several councils of the In- 
dians where the Gnadenhutten massacre was discussed, 
and heard the Indians resolve to take no more prisoners 
while the war lasted. 

A maddened host thereafter swept the whole fron- 
tier, and parties went well into the interior of Vir- 
ginia and Pennsylvania, passing between frontier forti- 
fied posts in order to fall with greater success on un- 
suspecting farmers. 

Of these raids but one need be described — that at 
Brayan's Station, standing a few miles northeast of 
Lexington, Ky., which resulted in the slaughter at Blue 
Licks. In July the British gathered a body of Indians 
and rangers numbering more than a thousand. These 
under Capt. William Caldwell, who had opposed Craw- 
ford at Upper Sandusky, started for an attack on 
Wheeling, Va., but hearing that George Rogers Clark 
was leading a command into the Indian country, they 
hastily returned to defend their homes. They learned, 
later, that the report was false, but the Indians, for the 
most part, were disbanded. A party of about 300, 
however, went to Kentucky, and arrived at Bryan's 
Station, on August i6th, 1782. It appears, however, 
that some scouts reached that neighborhood on the 
15th, and were discovered by the white lookouts. 

308 



Mississippi Valley. 

Foreseeing- from the actions of the scouts that an 
attack impended, the first care of the whites was to 
get a supply of water, and this was obtained by the 
women and girls, who went to the spring, laughing 
and chatting, as usual, although they were within 
range of a number of Indian guns, and knew it. The 
Indians, being anxious to keep their presence unknown 
in order to surprise the fort, later on, did not molest 
the women. 

But when the attack was made early on the i6th, 
it failed utterly. The Indians tried to decoy out the 
garrison by sending a small party to feign an attack 
and retreat on one side while the main body prepared 
to storm the other. The whites pretended to fall into 
the trap, and sent a party in pursuit, but the main 
body of the garrison gathered where the real storm 
impended, and repulsed it with a deadly volley. 

A rescuing party that was brought by messenger 
from Lexington was repulsed by the Indians, but when 
attempts were made to fire the station, during the night 
of the 1 6th, they failed, and during the next forenoon 
the Indians withdrew, "angry and sullen at their dis- 
comfiture." 

In the meantime the settlers from Lexington, and 
nearby forts, (Bryan's was the frontier settlement), 
had been gathering, and, 182 in number, they w^ere 
soon on the Indians' trail. The leaders saw by the 
tracks that the Indians outnumbered them, but they 
followed the trail as far as the Blue Licks, on the banks 
of the Licking River. 

From this point a number of Indians were seen on 
the rocks, on the further bank, and the settlers gathered 

309 



A History of the 

to consider what they should do next. Boone, the 
ablest fighter of them all, advised that a halt be made 
until another detachment, coming from Login's Sta- 
tion, as they knew, should arrive. The men in the com- 
pany who had been most successful in fighting Indians 
agreed with Boone, but Major Hugh McGarry, a blat- 
ant bully, was for crossing immediately. McGarry 
had been with a successful raid that George Rogers 
Clark had led to the Indian towns, the previous year, 
but had well-nigh wrecked it by an insubordinate dash 
from the main command, while yet it was on the Ohio. 
His vanity was his most conspicuous characteristic, and 
to display his physical courage he spurred his horse 
into the river, waved his hat with a theatrical flourish 
above his head, and "called on all who were not cow- 
ards to follow him." 

Of course the others "just had to" follow him. 
On the further side was an open forest. An advance 
guard of twenty-five was thrown out ahead. The In- 
dians were soon seen, and galloping forward till within 
sixty yards of the enemy, the settlers dismounted. 

Boone, in command of the left wing, opened the 
fight, and steadily drove the enemy back. But the 
Kentuckians were outnumbered so greatly that in a 
few minutes the Indians had killed nearly all the ad- 
vance guard ; and then they enveloped the right wing, 
which was crushed in on the center. Col. Trigg, who 
commanded the right wing, was killed, and a little 
later. Col. Todd was mortally wounded. As he fell 
from his horse with the blood gushing from his mouth, 
a panic seized a majority of the settlers, and almost to 
a man they fled back to the river. 

310 



Mississippi Valley. 

On the home side of the river, some of the men 
who had wished to wait for reinforcements, made a 
stand under the lead of a man named Netherland, and, 
by cool fire, so covered the retreat, that the Indians 
did not follow up their victory, as they might have 
done. 

But the Kentuckians had already sufifered fright- 
fully. Out of 182 men who went out into battle, sev- 
enty were killed during the fight, seven were taken 
prisoners, and twelve who escaped were badly wound- 
ed. And that, too, in a fight lasting about five minutes. 
Ot the seven prisoners, four were burned at the stake 
to avenge Gnadenhutten — for it must be kept in mind 
that this raid was one of the many made to avenge 
Gnadenhutten. One other was condemned to torture, 
but when the Indians started him running the gauntlet, 
he turned on the nearest Indian and threw him to the 
ground. Then he pitched another over his head, 
after which he leaped on a log, flapped his hands on 
his sides, and crowed like a rooster. The Indians 
roared with laughter, and a chief at once adopted him 
as a son. 

The enemy lost but twelve killed and fourteen 
wounded, according to their own account, in the entire 
raid. Of these, they said, seven were killed at the lick. 
It is reasonable to suppose that more Indians were 
killed than their report showed, but that was the se- 
verest blow the Kentucky frontier got in all its history. 

And yet no one, save the unconsidered Quakers 
and Moravians so much as observed the fact that in- 
justice to an inferior race was unprofitable to a most 
frightful degree. 

311 




CHARLES CORNWALLIS. (MAK(JUIS COKNWALLIS). 
From a portrait by Copley. 




XIX 

THE FRONTIERSMEN AT KING'S MOUNTAIN. 

Ferguson said He was in a Place from which all the 
Rebels outside of Hell" could not drive Him, yet an 
Inferior Force of Patriots, a Respectable Body of 
Prime Riflemen from the Holston in the Course of a 
few Minutes Captured all of His Force, and Killed 
and Wounded 389 of Them in Doing So — When 
Clark's Name was as Good as a Thousand Men. 



Although it was fought to the eastward of the Al- 
leghany divide, the battle of King's Mountain (Octo- 
ber 7th, 1780), should have mention, because of the 
part taken by the men from the Holston region, and 
because it was one of the decisive victories of the war. 
Until 1778, the Southern States were not molested by 
the British forces, but late in that year. Lieutenant 
Colonel Archibald Campbell with 3,500 regulars cap- 

3^3 



A History of the 

tured Savannah. A proclamation outlawing all who 
would not take up arms under the British standard 
followed, and soon Georgia was overrun by the British 
forces. 

On June 13th, the worthless Gates (one of a dis- 
graceful list, far too long, of American officers who 
have obtained position by political influence), secured 
the command of the Southern Department, and was 
shamefully defeated by Lord Cornwallis at Camden 
on August 1 6th, 1780. But British success reached 
flood tide at Camden, and the ebb which began to run 
at King's Mountain, left the invaders stranded at 
Yorktown. 

Cornwallis, while yet in South Carolina, detached 
Major Ferguson "to scout the highlands (even to the 
divide), and enlist" as many Tories as possible. Fer- 
guson took 200 British infantry and 1,000 Tories, 
**whom he drilled until" they were "excellent troops," 
by the British standard of the day, though they were 
deficient in one particular, as shall appear. 

But, very unexpectedly, instead of finding Tories 
flocking to his standard, Ferguson found packs of Pa- 
triots — "dirty mongrels," he called them — gathering to 
drive him to cover. In fact the "mongrels" proved 
such efficient fighters that Ferguson's thoroughbreds 
were started on the run, and they did not stop until, 
on October 6, 1780, they were kenneled safely, (as 
they supposed), on top of King's Mountain. 

"Well, boys, here is a place from which all the 
rebels outside of hell cannot drive us," said Ferguson, 
as on the morning of the 7th he surveyed his position. 

And the facts seemed to warrant his confidence. 
314 



Mississippi Valley. 

He was on a knob of a ridge a half mile long, and 
1,700 feet high above the sea. The ridge was covered 
with big pines, and obstructed with huge boulders. 
His men, now 1,125 in number, had been trained until 
they would obey orders. The force that had been 
chasing him was composed of undisciplined militia. 
And although Ferguson did not know it, there were 
not 1,000 of these militia men. On the face of these 
facts, ignonimous defeat did seem to await the Ameri- 
can force. 

But there was one factor in the fight on which 
Ferguson had not counted; two factors, really, re- 
mained unconsidered. And to this day, in spite of oft 
repeated demonstrations of the vital importance of the 
matter, the first factor does not receive the considera- 
tion it deserves. 

Ferguson had drilled his men until they would 
obey orders under all circumstances, — a most important 
matter — but he had overlooked the chief end of soldiers. 
He did not fully realize that soldiers are enlisted solely 
to kill other soldiers in battle. He had men who "could 
march to admiration," but they could not shoot. They 
were poor marksmen. 

The Americans, to a man, had been trained to see 
with unwavering eyes through the sights of a rifle, 
and those of them who, under Shelby, Sevier and Col. 
William Campbell, had come from the backwoods, 
carried the Deckhard rifle, with a barrel three feet 
six inches long, and using a bullet running seventy 
to the pound — a most deadly weapon. Moreover, 
though undisciplined militia, and therefore liable to 
panic, they were now acting on the offensive, and were 

315 



A History of the 

angered- by the memory of the outrages that had been 
perpetrated by the British partisans. Ferguson had not 
considered the anger of these woodsmen. He had 
not understood the value of marksmanship. 

At 3 o'clock in the afternoon of October 7, the 
Americans, 1,000 strong, dismounted around the foot 
of the mountain, and after tying their horses to the 
trees, looked to the priming of their rifles and prepared 
to climb three sides of the ridge. The north end was 
precipitous and was left unconsidered. 

Led by Campbell and Shelby in the center, the 
Americans climbed up until the British saw them and 
opened fire, when they deployed behind trees and began 
to shoot also — continuing to advance, the while, from 
tree to tree, and rock to rock. The crack of the Ameri- 
can rifle was soon seen to speak of death to the British, 
and Ferguson ordered a charge with bayonets fixed. 

The Americans fell back until the British host was 
well down the mountain side, when a band of back- 
woodsmen under Sevier opened fire on the British 
right flank. 

Instantly the well-disciplined British soldiers turned 
on Sevier's men, but it was only to find another Ameri- 
can host firing on them from the rear, while the men 
under Shelby and Campbell turned on them instantly. 

The British opened fire in return, but because they 
could not shoot well, they killed Americans only by 
chance and accident. And seeing that the British fired 
wildly, the Americans crept nearer, and fired as if 
at a herd of buffalo. Ferguson came riding a beauti- 
ful white horse along the crest of the ridge, and with 
shouts encouraged his men to withstand the Americans. 

316 













■^ 



-O 



1 L 



. ■"J 


















Mississippi Valley. 

But he had come within range of men accustomed to 
kilHng deer on the run. He was shot dead, pierced, 
it is said, by no less than six bullets, and falling to the 
ground, his horse raced wildly down the mountain. 

The end had come, the battle had been raging 
only a few minutes, but, brief as the time was, 389 
of the British had been killed or wounded, out of the 
1,125 that went into battle. Twenty escaped and the 
rest surrendered. The American loss was but twenty- 
eight killed, and sixty wounded. 

The victory was the work of what the Kentuck- 
ians called "a. Respectably Body of Prime Riflemen," 
but to this day our soldiers are drilled by the hour in 
marching, where a minute is devoted to target practice. 

The battle of King's Mountain freed the Holston 
region from any fear of Tory invasion ; and Yorktown 
followed on King's Mountain. But it did not free 
the Holston from Indian depredations. The Chero- 
kees had been incited by the British agents to renewed 
activity, while the British overran the country east 
of the Alleghanies. 

The work that followed was thorough, but monot- 
onously like that of other attacks on Indian settlements. 
The white men, with corn, powder and lead only in 
their pouches, ranged free through the forests. "A 
thousand cabins were burned, 50,000 bushels of corn 
destroyed." But the Indians fled before the whites, 
and but twenty-nine red men were killed in the first 
raid, and thirty in the second. A third brought in a 
dozen scalps. But in the meantime so many red women 
and children had been taken prisoners that the Chero- 
kees sued for peace. 



A History of the 

It was in 1780, (May 26), that a party of 1,500 
Indians and 140 British traders made an attack on 
St. Louis. They were sent "out by Lt. Gov. Sinclair, 
of Michilimacinac, and led by a Sioux chief named 
Wabasha. The affair lasted only a few hours, and 
no assault was made on" the fort. A few stragglers 
were killed and then the force fled back to the north. 
Nothing of consequence was accomplished, but this 
assault was to be the first of a series intended to cap- 
ture New Orleans. The reason for the sudden flight of 
the Indians is found in the fact that they had learned, 
during the day, of the arrival of George Rogers Clark 
with a small body of men. The name of Clark was 
as good as a thousand ordinary men well armed. 




318 




GEN. ISAAC SHELBY. 



His remarkable career cannot be epitomized in tliis brief space. 
This portrait is by Durand. 




XX 



• FRONTIER HOAIE AND CIVIL LIFE IN WAR TIME. 

A Memorable Picture in the History of the Mississippi 
was the Man who Walked Across the Mountains 
Driving a "Flea-Bitten" Grey Horse Loaded with 
Books — It was a Poor Man's Country, for No Great- 
er Capital was Necessary than Enough to Buy an 
Acre, a Hoe and a Rifle — A Consideration of Things 
that Shocked European Travellers — One of Col. 
William Campbell's Busy Sundays. 

Of all the pictures of life on the frontier during 
the war of the Revolution, none pointed the way of the 
future Republic in better fashion than that of a young 
man who came from Princeton, New Jersey, and 
"walked through Maryland and Virginia, driving be- 
fore him an old 'flea-bitten' grey horse, loaded zvith a 
sack full of books." Samuel Doak was his name, and 
he was a teacher as well as a preacher. Following the 

319 



'A History of the 

blazed trails through the forest-covered mountains, he 
came at last to Jonesboro, and there settled, and in 
1/77 built a Presbyterian church. Doak believed with 
his congregation that the red men were heathen who 
ought to be driven from the fair land, as the heathen 
were driven from Canaan, and that when red men were 
killed, their souls went straight to the eternal torment 
to which they had been ordained from all eternity. 
Nevertheless he brought to the wilderness "a sack full 
of books," among which was one containing the Sermon 
on the Mount; and at worst any books were better 
than no books. Moreover he built a log school house 
that grew into Washington College, later on. There 
were many vagabonds on the frontier — shiftless hunter 
folks with no ambition beyond a full stomach, but the 
dominant portion of the people knew well the value of 
books. That is a matter well worth consideration in 
connection with the further fact that, as the frontier 
spread across the continent, school houses were always 
to be found in the battle line, until a time came when 
the people made boast that the first brick burned in 
this or that community were used in building a school 
house. That sack full of books on a flea-bitten grey 
horse with Doak afoot in order that the horse might 
carry a full sack, is a most memorable incident in the 
life of the Mississippi Valley. 

The winter of 1779-80 was known as "the hard 
winter," for many years after it had passed. The 
whites in Kentucky and Tennessee had never seen such 
prolonged cold weather or such a depth of snow. Cat- 
tle and horses perished of the cold and starvation. 
The game became lean. Only scanty crops of corn 

320 



Mississippi Valley. 

had been raised, and what was harvested was eaten 
before spring came. A fort had been erected during the 
summer of 1779 at the Falls, (Louisville), and stores 
had been provided for the garrison. Some corn was 
held there by the merchants, who soon raised the price 
to $50 a bushel, and eventually to $175, in Continental 
money, which was worth then, and at that place, not 
far from twenty-five cents in coin per dollar. The 
lean breast of turkeys was sliced and eaten in place of 
bread with the meals of broiled and roasted venison, 
and the only satisfactory meals known throughout the 
winter were eaten when some lucky hunter found a 
bear in its den. For the bears were always fat. 

Following the hard winter of 1779-80, the in- 
flux of population was extraordinary. No less than 
''300 large family boats arrived, during the ensuing 
spring, at the Falls," says Floyd's correspondence, 
quoted by Butler, Many other people, of course, came 
by the Wilderness road, through Cumberland Gap. 
One estimate says that more than 4,000 came in 1780. 

On the whole the influx of people from the settled 
region east of the mountains is one of the important 
facts in the history of the Great Valley during the Rev- 
olution, The Indian raids drove many people from the 
frontier, but the immigration more than made up for 
the losses thus sustained. The weaklings who returned 
filled the East with the tales of the Indian raids, and 
their stories could scarcely have been exaggerations 
of the facts, simply because the human mind could 
scarcely imagine more dangerous conditions, in such 
a country, than those actually existing there. The 
life of no white person was safe for a moment when be- 

321 



A History of the 

yond a fort's walls. The home seekers who came in 
the 300 family boats knew what they were to face when 
they left the Monongahela, and many of them began 
their experiences with red warriors while yet on the 
river. For the river was haunted by parties of hostile 
Indians in 1780, and for years after. It was a year 
later that Colonel Archibald Lochry and his command 
of 100 men were destroyed by Indians while coming 
down the river. Nevertheless immigration continued. 

It was a people of the utmost courage, and the 
dominant portion of them were of the rarest energy. 
A few slaves were with the emigrants, but it was dis- 
tinctively a community of people who would work. 
Owners and slaves swung the axe and the hoe side by 
side in the forest and field. It was a condition of 
affairs that could not last long, for slave owners would 
necessarily come, at last, to look upon physical labor 
as ignoble; but it is the most important fact in the 
history of the United States that the Mississippi Val- 
ley has been prosperous and progressive in proportion 
to the zvay the dominant people in it have been zvilling 
to zuork. 

We have in these early days of the Twentieth Cen- 
tury adopted a new Rank (John Paul Jones always 
spelled rank with a capital R). We call some of our 
great men Captains of Industry. Carlyle and Ruskin 
suggested such a Rank long ago, and we have acted 
on the suggestion. Through luck and longevity a 
mediocre man may lead all officers in army or navy. 
A ninny or degenerate may come to the Rank of cap- 
italist through inheritance. But the Rank of Captain 
of Industry is the proud title only of him who earns 

322 



Mississippi Valley. 

it by honest toil. If a blight fell at any time on any 
part of the Mississippi Valley, it was because its 
dominant people came to look upon labor as something 
to be done by slaves. 

Imlay has told how men with little capital suc- 
ceeded in those early days. Men with an axe, a hoe 
and rifle came to Kentucky and succeeded. A sufficient 
shelter was built with an axe, and the rifle and the 
forest supplied the food while the trees were chopped 
from three acres of land. A half acre was planted 
with garden vegetables and the remainder in corn. 
Because much time had to be given to hunting, the 
first crop amounted to no more than seventy bushels of 
corn, but half that was enough to supply the settler 
having a family of three with bread for the ensuing 
year. The remainder found a ready market, though 
at a low price, while the skins of the animals killed 
formed the currency of the country. 

When the second season came the clearing was 
five acres large, and the ensuing crop greater in pro- 
portion. By this time, too, the industrious man would 
have established himself among his neighbors so firmly 
that a cow could be purchased on credit, while the third 
year saw him driving at least one horse of his own, 
and a modest fortune was at hand. 

All this supposes that the family escaped an In- 
dian raid. The common lot was not one of uninter- 
rupted progress. It often happened that when a man 
had got his house walls chinked and his roof clap- 
boarded; when a cow fed on the luscious cane by the 
river, chickens clucked and cackled in the yard and 
the man was guiding a plow behind his first horse, 

323 



A History of the 

a party of raiders came to the clearing and wiped out 
the family and all they had accumulated. 

The instances where some members of the family 
were slaughtered and some escaped are many, but 
rarely, if ever, did the raiders fail to burn the cabin 
and destroy the stock and crops. The present-day read- 
er notes with a feeling of relief that in this and that 
raid the Indians were unable to do more than burn a 
few cabins, but imagine the bitterness of heart with 
which the home maker returned to his clearing and 
found that the results of two or three years of the 
hardest kind of toil and self-denial had been all but 
wholly destroyed — the clearing only remained. 

Yet the losses, heavy as they were, had some com- 
pensation in the cultivation of the sturdy qualities of the 
people. For it zvas a characteristic of the men and 
women who made the Mississippi Valley to persist. 
The unsurpassed pluck that made men with mortal 
wounds use their ebbing strength to give a last blow 
to the enemy, made the living begin over again and 
over again, no matter how many times they were 
ruined. They were of the tribe of John Paul Jones, 
and when asked if they had surrendered replied in- 
variably : 

"I have not yet begun the fight." 

Even when unmolested by Indians, the home mak- 
ers ordinarily had but a poor market for their surplus 
products. Here is a price list published as late as 1793, 
when peace was secured and the thronging emigrants 
consumed nearly all the surplus of the older settlers. 

"Indian corn is from Qd to is per bushel. Beef 
is from i i-2d to 2d per lb. Veal, 2 i-2d per ditto. 

324 



Mississippi Valley. 

Mutton, 3d ditto. Pork is from 26. to 2 i-2d per lb. 
Bacon, 3 i-2d to 4d. Bacon hams from 4d to 5 i-2d. 
Salt beef, 2d. Hung or dried beef, 3d. Neat's tongues, 
6d. each. Butter is from 2 i-2d to 3 i-2d per lb. 
* * * Most people make their own sugar ; but when it 
is sold, the price is from 3d to 4 i-2d per lb." 

In November, 1780, the Virginia Legislature di- 
vided Kentucky into three counties, Jefferson, Lincoln 
and Fayette. John Floyd, Benjamin Logan and John 
Todd were commissioned Colonels for the three coun- 
ties in the order named, and George Rogers Clark, who 
was stationed at the Falls, was placed over all, with 
the rank of Brigadier general. Roosevelt notes that 
at the first court held, (Harrodsburg), "the first grand 
jury impanelled presented nine persons for selling 
liquor, eight for adultery and fornication, and the clerk 
of Lincoln county for not keeping a table of fees." The 
first court house and jail were built of logs. 

In 1782, several grist mills had been erected, and 
it is likely that sprouted corn appeared among the first 
grists brought to these mills, for distilleries were 
erected at the same time. 

In 1782 one Jacob Yoder built a flat boat at Red- 
stone and carried a cargo of whiskey to New Orleans 
with some profit. It is likely that whiskey was about 
the first product manufactured for export, and the 
home demand was not inconsiderable. The fact is 
the frontier life — the work of chopping trees, and 
grubbing around stumps, day after day, and living, 
the while, on plenty of meat and corn bread — created 
an appetite for liquor. The backwoodsman liked the 
taste of rum and whiskey, and he also enjoyed the 

325 



A History of the 

effect it produced upon him. When Wheeling was 
besieged in 1782, the garrison narrowly escaped de- 
struction because nearly all the men went down the 
river to a place where a keg of rum had been landed 
and concealed — went there with the deliberate pur- 
pose of getting hilariously drunk. But they sent out 
two scouts, as a matter of precaution, and these found 
signs of danger before the drinking bout was fairly 
started, and the garrison thus escaped. 

Redstone Old Fort, (Brownsville in 1902), was the 
starting point of the river navigation in those days. 
To Redstone came all the overland traffic bound down 
the river, and the reputation of that town for drunken- 
ness and debauchery became world wide. Limestone, 
Ky., (now the orderly Maysville), was also called a 
tough town. But it must be remembered that the out- 
laws and ne'er-do-wells that came to the frontier, 
gravitated to the settlements and gave them evil 
reputations even when the majority of the inhabitants 
were reputable people. It was the rule for every man 
to mind his own business, and in no way meddle with 
that of others. And what was worse, war — the con- 
stantly-impending danger — made men reckless, while 
the idleness due to the necessity of remaining in pali- 
saded settlements, made any diversion welcome even 
to sober-minded citizens. They ran races, with bottles 
of whiskey for prizes. They drank their winnings. 
They fought each other "rough and tumble." It was 
not uncommon for a man to lose an eye in one of these 
rough and tumble fights. If one fighter got a chance 
he pressed his thumb into the eye of his opponent and 
literally "gouged" it out. 

326 



Mississippi Valley. 

Europeans — especially Englishmen — who came to 
the region as tourists, a little later, were horrified by 
the sight of such fighting. They said it was utterly 
barbarous. The civilized way to fight was for the 
combatants to stick swords into each other. 

On the whole, however, as has been noted, the 
distinguishing characteristic of the early settlers was 
the love of order — as it is a distinguishing character- 
istic to-day. They talked much of their love of liberty. 
Their orators told them that liberty was the rock-in- 
place foundation of their prosperity. But now that 
there is no danger of any well-established republican 
government reverting to monarchy — now that every 
American fully comprehends the value of his right to 
select the hero who is to reign over him — it is worth 
while to note the influence of order on the prosperity 
of the people. Order and justice under a despotism are 
now seen to be better than anarchy, if one has to 
choose. 

The frontiersmen made stump speeches, (literally 
from the stump tops), on liberty, but they loved an 
orderly state of society more than they did liberty! 
Boone and his associates at Boonesborough ; Robertson, 
Shelby and Sevier on the Watauga ; Robertson, again, 
and his friends at Nashville, org-anized governments 
and enacted laws to supply what they saw to be the 
chief need of the communities they had gathered. And 
they enforced those laws — preserved order — at the 
muzzles of Deckhard rifles, with barrels three feet 
six inches long, and bullets that ran seventy to the 
pound, though a rawhide halter sometimes took the 
place of the rifle. 

327 



A History of the 

One Sunday, as Col. William Campbell, a leader 
living at the head of the Tennessee valley, was riding 
home from Doak's church, he saw a disreputable citizen 
— a Tory — ride across the trail ahead of him. The 
Tory refused to stop, when hailed, and at that Camp- 
tell, who was carrying a baby, handed the child to a 
servant and dashing after the Tory caught him. 

The court was convened under the nearest tree, and 
it was proved that the Tory was riding a stolen horse. 
Such violations of good order could not be endured, 
and they ceased forever so far as that Tory was con- 
cerned, for Campbell hanged him to a tree and rode 
on home with a good appetite for the somewhat be- 
lated meal. 

And strong as was the liberty among the people 
there, a time came when, to secure certain other in- 
terests, many of the population, (including even John 
Sevier and Robertson), were ready to go over to the 
Spanish. 

One might dwell on the prowess of many individual 
woodsmen in their warfare on the enemy. There were 
Lewis Wetzel and his brothers. There were Samuel 
Brady and a host of others. These men were counted the 
heroes of the frontiers, because of the number of 
scalps they took. These men stood high in the frontier 
estimation precisely as certain braves stood high in In- 
dian villages. But these men did infinitely more harm 
than good to the frontier. They were animated by a de- 
sire for revenge, and a love of blood. They were de- 
stroyers, not builders. There was no strategic value in 
their fighting, while lasting injury was done by their 
words and example to the young people of the whole re- 

328 



Mississippi Valley. 

gion. White boys were taught to hunt Indians as they 
were taught to hunt bears and wolves. The ambition to 
parade a scalp was as rampant on the frontier as among 
the Indian wigwams. The courage and skill of these 
men, if admirable when properly directed, yet became 
the bane of the youth of the whole frontier, from the 
lakes to the Gulf. It was solely because of the bar- 
barism in the human mind that fighters held social 
rank then, and hold it now. 

It was on October 17, 1781, (the fourth anniver- 
sary of Burgoyne's surrender), that Lord Cornwallis 
hung out the white flag at Yorktown, and when the 
news reached the prime minister of England he "walked 
wildly up and down the room, throwing his arms 
about, and crying, 'Oh God! It is all over! It is all over! 
It is all over!' " 

Because of the Gnadenhutten outrage, the frontier 
was yet to be raided worse than ever, and the British 
at Detroit were to make a last effort to drive the 
frontier people to the east side of the mountains. But 
there was no power among either British or Indians to 
accomplish such a result. The frontier home-maker 
had a wide-spread footing on the soil, and with his axe 
he hewed the bounds of the Nation to the Mississippi. 




BRIG. GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE. 

From a pencil sketch by Col. ]nhn Trumbull, of the 

Revolutionary Army. 




XXI 



FIGHTING TO POSSESS LAND ALREADY WON. 

Story of the Posts in the Northwest that were Retained 
by the British after Agreeing to Abandon Them — • 
The Indians Urged to Slaughter the Women and 
Children of the American Frontier in order to Pro- 
mote the British Fur Trade — St. Clair's Defeat — 
"Mad" Anthony Wayne to the Rescue — Wayne's 
March to the Maumee — The Battle of Fallen Timber 
— Land of the Mississippi Under the Flag at Last, 

The story of the making of the treaty of peace 
between Great Britain and the United States, at the 
end of the War of the Revolution, is one of the most 
pleasing in the history of the Nation. In April, 1782, 
Mr. Richard Oswald was sent by Shelburne, the Brit- 
ish Colonial Minister to Paris to consult with Frank- 
lin. Oswald was one of Franklin's intimate friends. 

331 



A History of the 

He had married an American. It was easy for these 
two men to agree on prehminary matters. John Jay 
and John Adams went to Paris to assist in the final 
work. The French minister was eager to confine the 
new Nation within the Atlantic watershed of the Alle- 
ghanies, and Congress had instructed the American 
commissioners to follow his dictation when making 
peace. But soon after the final negotiations began, we 
had there "the strange spectacle of the colonies joining 
with their enemy, the mother country, to circumvent 
the scheme of their own allies," as "A Century of Amer- 
ican Diplomacy" says. Shelburne preferred the Ameri- 
cans to the Spanish for neighbors along the Great 
Lakes. "He recommended to the British negotiator to 
so act as *to regain the affections of the Americans.' " 
Through the work of George Rogers Clark the Ameri- 
cans held the Illinois region, and the British negotiator 
readily acknowledged the right of possession. The 
fact is, as pointed out by Wharton, "the treaty of 
peace was not a grant of independence, but was a 
partition of the Empire." In this "separation" so much 
of the British Empire as lay within stated bounds was 
set up as the United States of America. It was a 
separation that carried with it the old reciprocal rights, 
and "the idea of a future reciprocity between the two 
Nations, based on old tradition, as moulded by a mod- 
ern economical liberalism, was peculiarly attractive to 
Shelburne," (J. 0. Adams quoted by Wharton). The 
w^estern limit of the United States was readily placed 
where the British limit had been, — on the Mississippi. 
Those who have confidence in the characteristics of 
the Anglo-Saxon race may well consider what results 

332 



Mississippi Valley. 

would have followed if the British had continued to 
maintain a friendly attitude toward the new Nation. 

But no sooner had the treaty been made than the 
British began to feel that they had shown weakness in 
their effort "to regain the affections of the Americans." 
They were poor losers. In fact they were "welchers." 
They refused to give up the posts they had agreed to 
evacuate. Ostensibly the frontier posts were held to 
compel the Americans to restore the Tories the property 
that had been confiscated, and to pay certain debts owed 
by individuals to British merchants. But the real cause 
was the feeling that they had been too liberal in mak- 
ing the treaty. "God forbid, if I shall ever have a 
hand in another peace," wrote Strachey, (an under 
secretary) who assisted the British commissioner Os- 
wald in making the treaty. 

The discontent created by the feeling that too much 
had been conceded was greatly increased by the protests 
sent home by the fur traders of Canada. In the history 
of America the fur trade has done at the north what 
the discovery of gold did at the south. In grasping at 
the profits of the fur trade, the traders hesitated at no 
crime, and no outrage on human rights. Under the 
treaty the British fur traders were to be excluded from 
the United States territory, and they estimated the trade 
so to be lost at $450,000 a year. It was in good part 
to save this part of the fur trade that the frontier posts 
of the United States were retained by the British after 
they had agreed to evacuate them. 

But not only were the posts retained. The com- 
manders of the British garrisons, and the traders who 
had store houses at every post, continued to urge the 

333 



A History of the 

Indians to make forays against the American frontier, 
much as they had done during the war. The purchase 
of scalps came to an end, indeed, but in every other 
way the soldiers and traders constantly incited the In- 
dians to harass the advancing frontiersmen. The rea- 
son for this attitude was found in the fact that the fron- 
tiersmen were home-makers. The British were anxious 
that the territory northwest of the Ohio should re- 
main a game preserve where a crop of beaver skins 
could be gathered every year. Said Sir John Johnson, 
in a letter to Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, dated 
Montreal, 22 February, 1791 : "As you certainly are 
all free and independent, I think you will have a right 
to insist upon disposing of whatever lands you judge 
fit to reserve for the General Confederacy, in whatever 
manner, and to whomsoever you please. * * * No 
just right or claim can be supported beyond the line 
of 1768, and to the western line of the land ceded or 
sold by the Indians to the states since the war." He 
adds that in a letter to Lord Dorchester, Governor of 
Canada, *T took the liberty of saying that the Ameri- 
cans had no claim to any part of the country beyond 
the line established in 1768, at Fort Stanwix." 

The chief object of British diplomacy in Canada, 
at that time, was to wrest the territory northwest of 
the Ohio from the United States and set it up as the 
territory of a "General Confederacy" of Indians who 
were to be, of course, under British protection. And 
with that end in view, for nearly twelve years the sol- 
diers and traders at the posts encouraged and fitted out 
Indian parties that haunted the Ohio river, and lurked 
in the forests about the cabins of the settlers. 

334 




'^ 



j3p|0L|aDe|ci 
ino-piod 



S ^ -^ 7^ 




Mississippi Valley. 

No details of these raids need be given because they 
were all alike and similar to those of the war. Children 
were slaughtered, men were tortured, and every kind 
of property was destroyed in order to beat back the hu- 
man tide that was flowing through the passes of the 
Alleghanies. One authority says that 1,500 people were 
killed in Kentucky alone, by the Indian raids during 
the seven years following the treaty of peace with Great 
Britain, while another authority estimates the total loss 
of life due to these raids at 5,000. It should be remem- 
bered, too, that by the treaties of Fort Stanwix, (Oc- 
tober 3-21, 1784) and Fort Finney, (January 26 — Feb- 
ruary I, 1786), the Indians had acknowledged the sov- 
ereignty of the United States over their country. 

For several years the Americans acted only on the 
defensive or made counter raids that were effective 
chiefly, if not solely, in glutting some private revenge. 

George Rogers Clark went up to the Wabash coun- 
try and overawed, for a time, the Indians there, and in 
the Illinois country. He also confiscated the goods of 
some Spanish traders in retaliation for seizures of Am- 
erican flat boats by the Spanish down the Mississippi. 
Col. Benjamin Logan made a raid up to the Shawnee 
towns in Ohio, where he took ten scalps and thirty-two 
prisoners, besides burning 200 cabins and much corn. 

In 1790 Gen. Josiah Harmar with a force of 320 
regulars and 1,133 militia marched to the site of the 
modern Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He burned 300 huts and 
destroyed 20,000 bushels of corn, but he lost 180 men 
in encounters with the Indians, and instead of inclining 
the red men to peace he encouraged them to further 
warfare. And to add to the encouragement of the red 

335 



A History of the 

men, the British suppHed them with an abundance of 
ammunition immediately after Harmar's retreat. It is 
worth noting, too, that Lord Dorchester, Governor of 
Canada, while issuing ammunition through the fron- 
tier posts, on American territory, to the Indians was 
publicly denying that this had been done. 

Meantime, while frontier guns were accomplishing 
little or nothing the frontier axe was doing something. 
A notable tool was the American axe — thin-bladed, 
long-handled, and light in weight. The best woodsmen, 
then as now, found that an axe weighing from three 
and a half to four pounds was just right, and the blade 
was modeled by smiths who had chopped down trees as 
well as hammered steel. The American axe has never 
been equalled. 

With the axe, settlements were made on both sides 
of the Ohio in spite of raids. In 1785 Fort Harmar was 
built at the mouth of the Muskingum to restrain the In- 
dians. On October 2y, 1787, the Ohio Company, an 
aggregation of New England men that included both 
home-makers and speculators, bought of Congress 964,- 
285 acres of land opposite Fort Harmar at the junction 
of the Ohio and Muskingum, (the land lay on the north 
side of the Ohio), agreeing to pay $642,856.66. Gen. 
Rufus Putnam was a leader among these home makers. 
It was a company composed chiefly of soldiers of the 
Revolution, but there were enough speculators in it to 
throw a shadow of disrepute over the transaction. The 
Rev. Manasseh Cutler, a man who "believed, as that 
sort of man often does, in making his neighbors and 
those he knew best his associates in any hazardous un- 
dertaking," (Winsor), was the leader of the specula- 



"1 





MARIE ANTOINETTE. 

Queen of France, wife of Louis XVI. The town of Marietta, 
Oliio, was named for this lady. 



Mississippi Valley. 

tors. He was the man who "worked" Congress for 
the grant. The total breadth obtained by the specula- 
tors was 5,000,000 acres, the price of which was to be 
$3,500,000. The land beyond the grant for the settle- 
ment of soldiers was to be sold as a speculation, and 
Cutler in connection with Joel Barlow and Col. William 
Duer, by means of descriptive circulars that were delib- 
erately false, sold a considerable breadth to a com- 
pany of Frenchmen whose misfortunes, after reaching 
the banks of the Ohio, were great. An interesting and 
instructive but very unpleasant book might be written 
on the work of dishonest land speculators in the Miss- 
issippi Valley. 

On April 2, 1788, Putnam, with a party of survey- 
ors and engineers, left the Youghiogheny in a bullet 
proof flat boat, and on the 7th reached Ft. Harmar. 
They then surveyed the plot purchased of Congress, and 
built the town of Marietta, Ohio. It is the proud boast 
of the Marietta people, in these days, (and of all Ohio 
as well), that the settlers under Putnam brought with 
them a library. The people of the region have often 
boasted, also, that the ordinance, (July 13, 1787), for 
the government of the region northwest of the Ohio, 
(in the writing and passage of which Cutler was 
the leading spirit), prohibited slavery. The ordi- 
nance did not extirpate slavery, as it was supposed to 
do, but it undoubtedly had much influence in creating a 
public sentiment againt the detestable instituion. 

Then, too, the men who followed Putnam were for 
the most part old comrades in arms — men who had 
fought for the freedom of the Nation in the war of the 
Revolution. At a time when the demagogues in Ken- 

337 



/i History of the 

tucky were telling the home-makers that a separation 
from the States east of the Alleghanies was necessary 
for their welfare it was worth while to have a settlement 
on the Ohio composed of men who had proved their de- 
votion to the welfare of the whole people. 

Another interesting feature of this settlement is 
found in the method of dividing the land. Instead of al- 
lowing the settlers to go into the region and pick out 
claims which were to be afterwards surveyed, to please 
the settler, as was done in Kentucky, the whole tract was 
first surveyed into townships six miles square and each 
township into sections one mile square. Accordingly 
when a man located a claim the land taken already had 
ascertained and definite bounds. There were no over- 
lapping claims as under the haphazard scheme that had 
previously prevailed. 

Marietta was settled during a busy season on the 
Ohio river. The officers at Fort Harmar counted more 
than 500 flat boats carrying 10,000 emigrants down 
the Ohio river. 

On July 9, 1788, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, who had 
seen service under Wolf at Quebec, and had but re- 
cently been president of Congress, arrived at Marietta, 
bringing an appointment as Governor of the "North- 
west Territory." 

Meantime, (May 15, 1788), John Cleve Symmes 
bought a large tract of land on the Ohio river between 
the Great and Little Miami rivers; and in July "with 
fourteen four-horse wagons and sixty persons in his 
train," he came to his purchase. Among the followers 
of Symmes was John Filson, a surveyor, who is best 
known as the reporter who wrote the story of Daniel 

338 




( s^ 



^ A 



MAJ. GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR. 
From a pencil sketch by Col. John Trumbull. 



Mississippi Valley. 

Boone. When the company wished a name for the 
town which they proceeded to lay out, Filson made one. 
Directly opposite the new town was the mouth of the 
Licking river. Filson thought that "Town-opposite-the- 
mouth-of-the-Licking" would be a proper name for the 
settlement, and he wrote it thus: L for Licking; os 
for mouth ; anti for opposite, and ville for town, which 
being combined gave Losantiville. But when St. Clair 
came to the settlement he determined to bestow on the 
town the name of the society of the Revolutionary offi- 
cers, known as the Cincinnati. 

It was on November 4, 1790, that Harmar began his 
"disorderly retreat" from the Indian country. On Jan- 
uary 2, 1 79 1, a big party of Indians, Delawares and 
Wyandottes, attacked a settlement on the Muskingum 
called Big Bottom, an off-shoot of Gen. Rufus Putnam's 
Marietta settlement. They killed twelve and carried off 
four prisoners. On the loth Simon Girty, with 300 
warriors, appeared at Dunlap Station, near Cincinnati, 
but accomplished little because aid came from the larger 
town. In February the Indians swarmed along the Al- 
leghany river. 

When the news of the first of these raids reached 
Washington, he notified Congress, (January 24, 1791), 
and in due course a new expedition, of which Gov. St. 
Clair was to have charge in person, was authorized. 

Washington believed that this expedition would 
convince the Indians that the "enmity of the United 
States is as much to be dreaded as their friendship is 
to be desired," while Jefferson said, "I hope we shall 
drub the Indians well this summer, and then change 
our plan from war to bribery." 

339 



A History of the 

Both these expressions are of interest chiefly be- 
cause it is apparent that neither Jefferson nor Wash- 
ington saw the strong hand of the British that was 
pushing the Indians into aggressions. But the strength 
of that hand appeared nevertheless, further on. 

St. Clair reached Ft. Washington, at Cincinnati, 
where he was to take charge of the forces for the ex- 
pedition, in May, 1791, but it was not until October 
that a number of soldiers deemed adequate for the oc- 
casion was gathered there. While w^aiting for the re- 
inforcements St. Clair fell sick, and so did Gen. Richard 
Butler, a notable soldier, the second in command. 
The powder supplied by the swindling, (one ought to 
say murderous) contractors was bad. The oxen were 
few in number and too lean in body. Worse yet, the 
recruits were, with few exceptions, an utterly worthless 
mob swept from the streets of the seaboard cities. 

However, St. Clair set forth, at last, and on Novem- 
ber 3, 1 79 1, made camp at a spot where Fort Recovery, 
Ohio, now stands on a branch of the Wabash river. 
Little scouting had been done, and no adequate precau- 
tions to repel an attack were made after pitching the 
camp. 

Taking advantage of these conditions the Indians, 
led by Little Turtle, fell upon the camp half an hour 
before sunrise next day, and by 9 o'clock, the army was 
in disorderly retreat. The killed numbered 630, the 
seriously wounded 280, and of 1,400 all told, under St. 
Clair, ''scarce half a hundred were unhurt." 

St. Clair's defeat, in its effect on the American peo- 
ple, was stupefying, exasperating and conducive to a 
mental condition not far from imbecility — all accord- 

340 



jap|0L|8De|d 
uno-piod 










vu- 



r V 



( ' i 



X 



Mississippi Valley. 

ing to the quality of individuals. A few were made 
firmer in their determination to resist aggression. The 
exasperated wished to wreck vengeance on St. Clair. 
The partially-made imbeciles, if they may be called so, 
demanded negotiations with the victorious red men in 
order to buy peace of them. Incredible as it may seem, 
those were the days when the American Congress re- 
fused to build war ships to protect American commerce, 
but they did actually build a fine frigate, ballast it with 
barrels of silver dollars and send it as tribute to an 
African pirate to purchase his favor. The Jeffersonian 
policy of "bribery" was fully tried. 

Negotiations were opened with the Indians, through 
the intervention of the Senecas. Brant, the Mohawk 
Chief, who was a leader in the council, in a speech some 
years later, told how the British exerted their influence 
to defeat the efforts for peace. "To our surprise," he 
said, "when on the point of entering upon a treaty with 
the Commissioners, we found that it was opposed by 
those acting under the British government." 

In fact the Commissioners were treated with marked 
insolence by Simon Girty, who was interpreter for the 
Indians. It was a particularly gloomy period on the 
frontier, for the Spanish still held Natchez, and were 
grasping for a wide territory in the southwest by means 
of Indian raids. 

But in the meantime one of the inspiring men of 
the American army — General Anthony Wayne — "Mad 
Anthony" — was appointed to command a new expe- 
dition against the Indians, and there was, at last, hope 
for peace. 

In the history of the early struggles of the Amer- 
341 



A History of the 

ican people the one man who has not received the full 
measure of credit due him is Gen. Anthony Wayne. 
If the average reader be asked what Wayne did to gain 
fame the reply, quickly given, is that he captured Stony 
Point. The spectacular dash of the man at Stony Point 
may well be remembered, for we all love a good leader 
in the thick of the fight; but the capture of the rocky 
peninsula below West Point was but a trivial skirmish 
in comparison with the splendid work he was now to 
do. Indeed, when rightly considered, the charge up the 
rocks of the promontory called Stony Point was less 
significant than the fact that he ordered his command 
to appear on parade "well powdered" before he started 
them on their long march through the mountains to 
reach the point of attack. 

Even Washington, it appears, failed, after the Revo- 
lution ended, to appreciate all the worth of this most 
capable brigadier, for when he was going over the 
names of the men available to retrieve the Ohio country, 
Wayne was really his second choice. Here is Wash- 
ington's valuation of "Mad" Anthony Wayne in 1791 : 

"More active and enterprising than judicious and 
cautious. No economist, it is feared. Open to flattery, 
vain ; easily imposed upon and liable to be drawn into 
scrapes." In such words did Washington describe this 
General, while choosing him for the command. But 
Hammond, the British minister to the United States, 
described him as the most active, vigilant, and enter- 
prising officer in the American army. 

When Wayne reached Pittsburg, and began to pre- 
pare for the work before him, (June, 1792), the task 
might well have appalled a man less resourceful. The 

342 



Mississippi Valley. 

contractors — they who had suppHed St. Clair with pow- 
der unfit for any purpose — were there, eager for oppor- 
tunity to fit out the new expedition in hke manner. The 
town contained, as frontier towns have always con- 
tained, numerous vile resorts to which the recruits were 
enticed whenever a shilling could be wrung from them. 
And the recruits were of the quality most easily enticed. 
Judge Symmes in speaking of the recruits supplied to 
St. Clair said : 

"Men vv^ho are purchased from prisons, wheelbar- 
rows and brothels at two dollars per month will never 
answer for fighting Indians." 

It was so. They were utterly worthless in the St. 
Clair expedition, but now Wayne was supplied with a 
second sweeping from the "prisons and brothels." By 
sleepless vigilance Wayne could sift out the unfit pow- 
der that the contractors wished to foist upon him, but 
from these unfit, rotten and sick recruits there was no 
escape. 

Moreover, he had to wait for the outcome of the 
negotiations that had been opened by the commissioners 
with the exultant Indians — negotiations that were in- 
cited, not by Christian philanthropy, but by cowardice 
and penury — an important distinction, by the way, and 
the reader may well consider for himself the bearing of 
this distinction on what has been said, hitherto, about 
the Quaker-Moravian policy of philanthropy toward 
the Indians, and the Jeffersonian system of "bribery." 

Nevertheless here was the man for the place, and 
once the choice had been made, he had the full support 
of Washington, who wrote him "not to be sparing of 
powder and lead to make his soldiers marksmen." 

343 



A History of the 

To get the recruits away from the evil influences of 
a frontier town a camp was estabhshed on the Ohio, 
twenty-seven miles below Pittsburg. Officers as well 
as men were raw, for nearly all of the available experi- 
enced officers had been killed at St. Clair's defeat; but 
at this camp, with unwearied patience, Wayne took his 
forces in hand, and day by day drilled them till their 
watery eyes grew clear, their trembling chins grew 
firm, their backs stiffened and a springing step replaced 
their slouching gait. 

When this much was done he taught them to play 
with the bayonet, and then he taught them to shoot. 

The writers of the annals of the Ohio river pioneers 
tell, with wondering zest, how Lewis Wetzel was able 
to load his rifle while running at top speed through the 
forest, and their wonder is justified by the fact. But 
this Mad Anthony Wayne trained his "boys and mis- 
creants" from the city slums until he had an army of 
more than a thousand men who could load their rifles 
as they ran, with scarce a stop, fire with frontier pre- 
cision; and run and load and fire again, yelling the 
while like a legion of demons. They could shoot with 
precision — could hit a six-inch target at a hundred 
paces — while marching at quick-step speed, and many 
of them could do as well on the run. 

The commissioners that had been appointed to ne- 
gotiate with victorious Indians for a peace reached 
Niagara in May, 1793, where they met the enemy — a 
combination of Indian chiefs and British officials. While 
there they heard fairly accurate accounts of the work 
Wayne was doing, and after the fashion of peace com- 
missioners who are appointed at the behest of cow- 

344 



Mississippi Valley. 

ardice and penury, they made haste to send protests to 
Washington. Wayne's successful work with the re- 
cruits was angering the Indians, said the commissioners, 
and the British — the British considered such work "un- 
fair and unwarrantable" ! 

Happily a Washington was at the head of the Amer- 
ican Government, and Wayne was not restrained in 
his work as drill master. He moved down the Ohio 
to Cincinnati, (May, 1793), and from that place he 
marched (October 7, 1793), to the north with a force 
of more than 2,000 men. 

The time for a fight was yet a long way off, how- 
ever. Negotiations inspired by penury and cowardice 
were yet in hand, and on October 13, Wayne camped 
for the winter and named the camp Greenville, after 
his old commander when fighting for liberty in the 
South ; and Greenville, Ohio, now perpetuates the mem- 
ory of the camp. 

Having secured the camp, Wayne sent a force for- 
ward to the field where St. Clair had been defeated, and 
built Fort Recovery. The Fort was armed with can- 
non abandoned by St. Clair. 

The effect of all this work upon the enemy, In- 
dians and British, was notable. As the years had 
passed, after the signing of the treaty of peace with 
Great Britain, a new source of trouble had risen. The 
long reign of corruption in France had culminated in 
the French Revolution. The war between France and 
England that followed was unavoidable. With the 
progress of this war the attitude of the British Gov- 
ernment toward the United States had steadily grown 
arrogant. It is important to note that this arrogance 

345 



A History of the 

was due, as every one now admits without dispute, to 
the weakness of the young RepubHc. There is no more 
important lesson to be learned in history than this, that 
governments are always devoid of the chivalry that 
keeps a good fighter from hitting an antagonist when he 
is down. The British wanted some favors from the 
Americans — harbors where their warships could refit 
and dispose of prizes and recruit their crews — but it 
never occurred to a British statesman to show any less 
arrogance and antagonism toward the Americans on 
that account. On the contrary, as said, the arrogance 
increased. 

While Wayne was at Greenville, Lord Dorchester 
was Governor of Canada. Lord Dorchester, in other 
days, had been known as Sir Guy Carleton, and as Sir 
Guy Carleton while on a victorious march from Canada 
to the Hudson, had been stopped by a puny force on 
Lake Champlain under the command of Benedict Ar- 
nold. "The face of the enemy" at Lake Champlain had 
turned him back to Canada. Lord Dorchester had no 
love for the Americans, and on February lo, 1794, at 
a council with the Indians hostile to the United States, 
he said, referring to the American frontier: 

"Children, since my return I find no appearance of 
a line remains, and from the manner in which the peo- 
ple of the States push on, and act, and talk, on this side, 
and from what I learn of their country towards the sea, 
/ shall not be surprised if we are at zvar zvith them in 
the course of the present year; and if so, a line must he 
drazvn by the warriors. 

"Children: You talk of selling your lands to the 
State of New York. I have told you there is no line 

346 



Mississippi Valley. 

between them and its. I shall acknowledge no lands to 
be theirs which have been encroached on by them since 
the year 1783. They broke the peace, and as they kept 
it not on their part, it doth not bind ours. 

"Children: What further can I say to you? You 
are witnesses on our parts we have acted in the most 
peaceable manner, and borne the language and conduct 
of the people of the United States with patience. But 
I believe our patience is almost exhausted." 

For years the British had kept the Indians fully 
supplied with arms for forays against the American 
frontier, and now that Wayne was pushing forward 
a well-drilled force, and the Indians needed to be en- 
couraged to meet it, the Governor of Canada said to 
them, "I shall not be surprised if we are at war with 
them in the course of the present year." The Indians 
who heard those words accepted them as a promise that 
the British would help with troops as well as with arms 
and other supplies. Lord Dorchester so intended his 
words to be understood. 

But the British encouragement did not stop with 
an implied promise of help. To emphasize the effect 
of Dorchester's speech, Lieut. Gov. John Graves Sim- 
coe was sent with three companies of British regulars 
to the rapids of the Maumee, where a fort was built. 
It was a deliberate invasion of American territory for 
the purpose of wresting the Ohio country from the 
American people, and was therefore a pleasant work 
for Simcoe, who also hated the Americans. 

The acts of the British authorities had theretofore 
been characterized by what Roosevelt calls "double 
dealing" and "smooth duplicity," but they now "began 

347 



A History of tlie 

to adopt that tone of brutal insolence which reflects the 
general attitude of the British people towards the 
Americans." 

If the reader thinks this is laying undue stress on 
the attitude of the British I must apologize by saying 
that stress seems desirable because of the tremendous 
contrast afforded when compared w'ith the present 
(1902) conditions which have been brought about by 
the advancement of Christian civilization, and the de- 
velopment of an unequalled fleet of American warships. 

Hammond, the British minister, not only admitted 
that aggressions had been made by his Government, 
but he justified them by complaining of American ag- 
gressions, the chief of which was wdiat he called "the 
unparallelled insult w4iich has been recently offered at 
Newport, Rhode Island," wherein the citizens of that 
town had taken six impressed Americans from the Brit- 
ish sloop of war Nautilus, by holding her captain a 
prisoner on shore until he released them. ( See Wait's 
"State Papers," vol. ii). To liberate American citi- 
zens who had been carried by a press gang aboard a 
British warship, and there compelled to serve as sailors, 
was Hammond's idea of an "unparalleled insult," and 
one to justify an armed invasion. 

An impartial reading of the documents of those 
days shows that war with Great Britain loomed high 
above the horizon. With a less capable man in Wayne's 
place the deluge would have fallen upon us. 

That the building of the fort at the foot of the Mau- 
mee encouraged the Indians is certain, for on June 30, 
1794, they swarmed down to Fort Recovery. But they 
were driven back, and Wayne having been reinforced, 

348 



J3P|0L|3De|d 

ino-pioj 



^ ^ 




t / 



c^ 



"^ 



Mississippi Valley. 

meantime, with i,6oo mounted Kentuckians, he 
marched to the St. Marys river, a branch of the Mau- 
mee, and built Fort Adams in what is now Mercer 
county, Ohio. Thence he marched on through Van 
Wert and Paulding counties, (the trail could be seen 
forty years ago), to the junction of the Big Auglaize 
and the Mauniee, where he built Fort Defiance. 

The French had named this tributary of the Mau- 
mee Au Glaize because of the rich loam of the plains 
found there. The fields of corn stretched away for 
miles in all directions, but no night trailing of a maid- 
en's robe around those fields could save them from the 
desolating host that had come to them. The corn was 
in the black silk, but the Indians were to have no green 
corn dance that year. The fields were laid waste to the 
last stalk. The Tories and Dorchester and Simcoe were 
responsible for the ills the Americans had suffered, but 
the Indians had to bear the burden then, as ever. 

Having destroyed the corn, Wayne marched, 
August 15 , down the left bank of the Maumee. It 
was a slow march because Wayne was still willing to 
grant peace to the Indians. But a delegation of Span- 
iards from the lower Mississippi came to give heart to 
the Indians by tales of the uprising of the Southern 
Indians, and promises of Spanish help. More impor- 
tant still, the new British fort was close at hand, and 
the Indians, looking to its garrison for help and succor, 
scorned the offer. On August 18, Wayne threw up a 
small earthwork at the head of the rapids of the Mau- 
mee, at Waterville, Ohio, to secure the baggage and 
provisions, and on the morning of August 20, 1794, 
the final advance was made. 

349 



A History of the 

Most remarkable was that field of battle. In days 
not long past, a tornado had come whirling along from 
the lakes, ripping up the giant forest trees by the roots, 
and piling them in confused masses, for miles along 
the river bottom. Behind these tangled heaps of logs 
— the "Fallen Timbers" — lay the Indians, numbering 
at the lowest estimate 1,300. With them lay seventy 
Canadians commanded by Capt. William Caldwell. Had 
the whole territory been searched no safer ground could 
have been found for that waiting host of red men. 

To feel his way, Wayne sent a squadron of cavalry 
against the entanglement, but the horsemen were hurled 
back with losses that threw them into confusion, and 
then the supreme moment of the day had come. 

Ordering his infantry to fix bayonets, Wayne 
stretched a line of them, 900 strong, before the fallen 
timbers, placed the remainder of the infantry some dis- 
tance in the rear for a reserve, divided the cavalry into 
two bodies to turn the Indian flanks, and sounded the 
charge. 

And as the long roll of the guns began, the battle 
line dashed forward with blood curdling yells, pitch- 
forked the enemy from behind the logs, shot them down 
as they fled, and leaping on in relentless pursuit, loaded 
and fired, again and again, till they had driven the 
panic-stricken hosts far beyond the British fort. 

The American loss was 33 killed and 100 wounded, 
most of whom fell in the preliminary charge of cavalry. 
The Indian and Tory loss was three times as great. 
Four British rangers were found dead on the field. 

It was a decisive victory. Not only were the In- 
dians scattered in a panic, but what was of far greater 

350 



Mississippi Valley. 

importance, the battle taught them that they had been 
meanly deceived by the British. Dorchester, Simcoe 
and the Tories had sicked them on to ravage the Amer- 
ican frontier, and then, as they fled for life, shut tight 
the gates of the fort that had been ostentatiously built 
for their support. The defeat of St. Clair was, in a way, 
the worst in the history of our Indian wars ; the victory 
of Wayne was the most convincing. 

They called the hero of Stony Point and the Mau- 
mee Rapids, Mad Anthony Wayne. The title was 
originated by an Irish soldier who had been confined 
in a guard house at the order of the General, and it 
was taken up by the people, because of the wild enthusi- 
asm with which Wayne led his men when the supreme 
moment of battle came. But observe that when the war 
of the Revolution impended, he "ransacked history" 
for accounts of battles that he might learn military 
tactics, and he gave his days to the training of his neigh- 
bors. At Stony Point he appealed to the pride of the 
men by parading them "clean-shaved and with hair well 
powdered," while the prelaid plans included even the 
slaughter of the dogs of the region that no yelp should 
betray the approach of the assaulting host. And last of 
all, when the honor of the Nation and the integrity of 
its territory were committed to his care, he took a legion 
of "boys and miscreants," gathered from the slums of 
the coast cities, and trained them until their skill 
equalled if it did not surpass that of the most noted 
backwoods Indian fighters. His courage and brilliancy 
in time of battle were unsurpassed, his record as a 
drill master is unequalled. 

The next day after the battle, called Fallen Tim- 
351 



A History of the 

bers because of the place where the Indians hid, the 
commander of the British fort — one Major Campbell 
— sent a messenger to ask Wayne "what he meant by 
such threatening action in sight of His Majesty's flag?" 
Wayne replied that his "guns talked for him." Then 
Major Campbell threatened to open fire on Wayne if 
his men came within range of the fort. It is said that 
Wayne at once rode to the fort walls in the hope that 
Campbell would shoot, and thus give ample excuse for 
an attack; but Campbell became suddenly discreet. 

In these trying conditions, Wayne showed that 
Washington had been mistaken in thinking him lacking 
in judicial sense. He swept the ground clean of huts 
and traders' stores, including Tory McKee's, to the 
walls of the fort, and then marched up the river de- 
stroying all Indian property on both sides, until (Sep- 
tember 17), he reached the junction of the St. Marys 
and St. Joseph, and there built a fort the memory of 
which is perpetuated to this day by the vigorous city of 
Ft. Wayne, Ind. It was a point of great importance, 
for the new fort commanded the portage of the Wabash. 

For twenty years, — beginning with the days when 
Connolly, as Lord Dunmore's agent, had created a war 
with the Indians along the Ohio — the home seekers 
who had crossed the Alleghanies, had been harassed by 
red men who were incited to devilish deeds by the Brit- 
ish, but the end had now come. The British were ready 
to make a treaty that would avert war, and the Indians 
were abandoned to their fate. The end for which 
Washington had hoped when St. Clair marched into 
the Indian Country was attained by "Mad" Anthony 
Wayne. The Indians saw that our enmity was as much 

352 



Mississippi Valley. 

to be dreaded as our friendship was to be desired. The 
territory northwest of the Ohio was now definitely 
opened for settlement, and homemakers soon thronged 
the shores of Lake Erie as well as the banks of the Ohio. 
Meantime, while Wayne was yet on the way to the 
Maumee, Jay had been sent to England to negotiate a 
treaty. The treaty which he secured was better than 
war, and that is the best one can say of it, and it was 
that far desirable only because the news of Wayne's 
victory arrived in London while Jay was negotiating. 
By this treaty, concluded November 19, 1794, the 
British once more agreed to take their soldiers out of 
American territory, and this time they did as they 
agreed to do. The treaty threw us into actual if un- 
declared war with France, but the integrity of the 
region won by the good work of George Rogers Clark 
was, at last, definitely and forever secured. 




353 




JAMES MADISON. 
From the original portrait by Stuart. 




XXII 



IN THE SOUTHWEST AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 



When the French Government Was Treacherous Toward 
the United States — PoHtical Work of the Deter- 
mined, Quick-Witted, Self-Rehant Frontiersmen — 
In spite of Influential Demagogues the Kentucky 
Conventions and Proceedings Afforded "a Salutary 
Precedent" — Kentucky Becomes a State — Tennessee 
as the State of "Franklin" — "The Territory South 
of the Ohio River" — The Irritating Work of the 
Spanish — Wilkinson's Speculations and His Traitor- 
ous Contracts with the Spanish — Other Sordid 
Traitors. 

To fully comprehend the things done in the South- 
west — in the Kentucky and Tennessee region especial- 
ly — after the Revolution, it is necessary to remember 
that the people of the frontier had migrated across 
the mountains to improve their condition. They were, 

355 



A History of the 

as a whole, people of small means, who had come to 
make homes. They had endured, and they were willing 
to endure, every hardship incident to wilderness life in 
order to get on in the world. Only determined fortune 
seekers — men who would not be easily balked wdien 
working for any end — would start on such a career, 
and every day of such a life as they experienced made 
them the more determined to surmount every obstacle 
in their w-ay. They were not only the most determined 
men in the world, but they were among the most active 
minded. A man who has to learn to dodge bullets by 
jumping when he sees the flash of the pow^der, learns 
also to make decisions quickly on all other matters in 
which he has a personal interest. And last of all they 
were entirely self-reliant. It was inevitable that these 
frontiersmen should "look out for Number i !" when 
any question of policy arose, and should "do it on the 
jump." 

It is necessary to remember, further, that these fron- 
tiersmen had become, perforce, accustomed to take a 
cross-cut route to order. They were used to what may 
be called Deckhard-rifle justice. It had been necessary 
to preserve order on the frontier when the nearest 
courts of law were hundreds of miles away, and the in- 
tervening space was a most dangerous wilderness. In 
the emergency the strong men of the new community 
compelled all to keep order and deal justly. Where pos- 
sible the forms of the law were observed, but when an 
appeal to the forms of law threatened to defeat justice, 
the forms of the law were swept away. They compre- 
hended what was afterwards called "the higher law" — 
the appeal for rights which the forms of law denied. 



Mississippi Valley. 

and right they would maintain at the muzzles of their 
rifles. 

Before this people, the most active-minded and self- 
reliant people in the world, lay the Mississippi and its 
navigable tributaries. It was the only outlet by which 
to convey their surplus products to the markets of the 
world. They had a "natural right" to absolutely free 
navigation on its waters to the high seas. In their be- 
lief (and it was a sincere belief) they would have had 
a natural right to a free navigation of the river even 
had a cheaper route to the East been available. They 
did not use much the term "higher law," but their 
orators thundered the words "Natural Rights" from 
every stump-top west of the Alleghanies. 

But at the mouth of the Mississippi the Spaniards 
were in power, and they were determined, not only to 
hold the mouth, but to control the entire stream and all 
the land east of it except certain districts already settled 
when the Revolution ended. 

People who learn from the school histories that the 
Battle of Yorktown was won with the aid of French 
troops, and that Lafayette was a sincere friend of the 
struggling colonies, think of the French King of that 
date as also a friend of the Colonies. But only a little 
further reading is necessary to learn that in spite of the 
sympathy of the French people, the French government 
(especially Vergennes, the prime Minister,) was ani- 
mated solely by a desire to injure the British in what 
he did to help the Americans. While he was glad to 
free the British colonies from the British yoke, he was 
determined to make^the new republic a vassal to France, 
or to disrupt it, and secure the vassalage of a part. 

357 



A History of the 

When in 1779 John Jay was selected to go to Spain 
to secure a recognition of the United States Govern- 
ment, he learned immediately after arrival that he 
would not be received unless the sovereignty of Spain 
over the Mississippi and all its valley (save only the 
parts actually settled by the Americans) were first 
conceded. To support this claim the Spanish sent an ex- 
pedition from St. Louis on January 2, 1781, across the 
country to a small post on the St. Joseph River (pro- 
}Dably near the site of La Salle's old post). This post 
was captured, robbed and abandoned in haste. On 
this "conquest" was based a claim to the Illinois and 
Wabash country. 

And the French Government, while pretending 
friendship, sent a special envoy (Luzerne) to the 
United States, who supported the Spanish claims. 

Weighed down by the enormous debt incurred dur- 
ing the war, and by adversity on the field of battle, and 
by the relentless pressure of adroit envoys, Congress 
yielded, for the time, the exclusive navigation of the 
Mississippi to Spain (1781), though Spain refused to 
accept that alone ; and finally, when the end of the war 
was at hand. Congress instructed the American peace 
commissioners to follow French dictation in fixing the 
bounds of the new Nation. 

But when the treaty of peace was made the instruc- 
tions of Congress were disregarded (Franklin said a 
man might as well sell the front door of his house as 
for the United States to abandon the navigation of the 
Mississippi), and, unknown to the French minister, 
concluded the agreement which extended the American 
territory to the Mississippi and the thirty-first parallel. 

358 



Mississippi Valley. 

If the British refused to adhere to the bargain, as 
has just been related, it was certain that Spain, with her 
clutch on the southwest corner of the American terri- 
tory, would ignore that bargain altogether. A Spanish 
General (Galvez) had taken Natchez from the British 
during a war between Spain and England ; the United 
States had never had possession of the Natchez terri- 
tory, the Spanish said, and they held firmly to the 
claim they had presented to Jay in 1779. 

Under this claim the navigation of the Mississippi 
was closed. Only by bribing Spanish officials could a 
flatboat cargo be taken to New Orleans. The stirring 
settlers west of the Alleghanies were like cattle corralled 
in a gulch. They could not escape over the mountains, 
and the Spanish closed the natural outlet. Washington, 
whose wisdom becomes more manifest as the years 
pass, was striving to create a way of transporting the 
Western surplus to the East by improving the water- 
ways furnished by the Ohio, the Monongahela, and 
Potomac; but he was a hundred years ahead of his 
time in his urgency for good roads and cheap transpor- 
tation. The people west of the Alleghanies were shut 
in. No markets could be reached. The opening of the 
Mississippi — a free opportunity to go to market with 
their surplus products — was necessarily the chief sub- 
ject of thought and influence west of the Alleghanies. 
And fortunate it has been for the Nation that this was 
so. 

The restlessness of the Kentucky people was first 
manifested in the efforts to establish a state Govern- 
ment. Conventions were held from time to time, be- 
ginning on December 27, 1784, for this purpose. The 

359 



A History of the 

proceedings at this convention formed a "salutary pre- 
cedent," to quote the words of Madison. The people 
fully appreciated their shut-in condition. They fully 
understood their natural right to the free navigation of 
the Mississippi. They knew very well that Congress 
had been willing to make bargains with Spain detri- 
mental to their interests. They knew that many people 
of the seaboard regarded them as communities made 
up of men little if any better than desperadoes. 
They knew, further, that the Union was a dry wall — a 
loose conglomerate — that New York, for instance, was 
at one time at the point of war with both Connecticut 
and New Jersey because of New York's tariff laws. 
There were demagogues a plenty in Kentucky to tell the 
people all these facts and to exaggerate the evils conse- 
quent thereon, but the work of the home-makers in 
their political proceedings, as with their axes, formed 
a salutary precedent. 

Chief among the demagogues was General James 
Wilkinson. As an aid to General Gates, he had been 
guilty of entering into a vile conspiracy against Wash- 
ington, wholly regardless of the peril of the country, 
but he was now a citizen of Kentucky, in the salt and 
skin trade, and looking to the Mississippi and even to 
the Spanish mines west of it, as means for laying "the 
foundations of opulence." 

Animated solely by selfish motives, Wilkinson 
wished to set up an independent state west of the Alle- 
ghanies, instead of a member of the Union. He soon 
found that this was going further than the people 
would follow, but, hoping to create trouble, he led a 
convention (August, 1785,) to demand a separation 

360 



Mississippi Valley. 

from Virginia instead of petitioning for the boon. He 
was able to exert influence in this matter solely by his 
ability to exaggerate the evils under which the people 
labored, but he failed in spite of his influence. Vir- 
ginia ignored the form of the demand and yielded. 

Delays due to the war with the Indians north of the 
Ohio prevented a prompt consummation of the work, 
and Wilkinson again argued for complete national inde- 
pendence of the region. It was during the days when 
George Rogers Clark and Benjamin Logan were 
obliged to raid the Ohio Indians to protect the Ken- 
tucky settlers, and he naturally found listeners who 
were indignant because neither the Virginia legislature 
nor Congress (Congress was the only National govern- 
ment then) protected the region. Moreover, there were 
Spanish aggressions on the south (to be described fur- 
ther on). Nevertheless the work of the conventions 
held to organize a state continued to afford a "salutary 
precedent," and in February, 1791, Congress accepted 
Kentucky as a member of the Union. 

Meantime the people of the Tennessee region had 
been engaged in the work of State building, also. In 
June, 1784, the North Carolina legislature ceded all the 
lands west of the mountains to Congress. On August 
2^, delegates from the settlements of the Tennessee met 
at Jonesboro, organized a convention with John Sevier 
as president, and then (two-thirds consenting), voted 
"that they be erected at once into an independent state," 
an event that was celebrated with "turbulent joy" by 
the people who had assembled to attend the proceedings. 
But when a constitutional convention was gathered, in 
November, the North Carolina assembly had meantime 

361 



A History of the 

rescinded the resolution to give the western territory to 
Congress, and pubhc opinion had so far changed that 
the convention did nothing. 

Late in 1785, however, another convention w^as 
held. These delegates believed that to set up a state 
government regardless of the legal aspects of the North 
Carolina control would in some way relieve them of 
their troubles — would open the Mississippi, for in- 
stance — and they adopted a constitution. Concern- 
ing the new state, so-called, that was then organized, 
two facts are interesting : the so-called state was named 
Franklin, and it was provided that every office-holder 
must be a member of the Presbyterian Church. Doak, 
of Princeton, with his sack full of books, had labored to 
some purpose. 

North Carolina, however, having rescinded the act 
giving the Tennessee district to Congress, once more 
resumed sway over the Tennessee settlements. John 
Sevier had been elected Governor of the "State" of 
Franklin, and the organization of districts was com- 
pleted under his energetic administration, but North 
Carolina had also a complete set of district and county 
officials in the same localities, and in the inevitable clash 
the old State party won, so that Sevier, at last (1788), 
became a fugitive from the recognized officers of the 
law. 

Meantime the loose conglomerate called the United 
States had been fusing into a Nation. On June 21, 
1788, New Hampshire adopted the Constitution, mak- 
ing the necessary ninth State, and five days later Vir- 
ginia followed. In November, 1789, North Carolina 
joined in, and then, on February 25, 1790, it once more 

362 



Mississippi Valley. 

deeded the land west of the mountains to the Nation. 
On April 2, Congress accepted the gift, and in May 
established a form of government for "the Territory- 
south of the River Ohio," with William Blount, of 
North Carolina, as Governor. 

Blount was, on the whole, the man for the place. 
He was assimilated by the people, so to speak. The 
work of making the State of Tennessee was done by 
a convention over which he presided, which met on Jan- 
uary II, 1796, and published the state constitution on 
February 6. It is worth while noting that James Rob- 
ertson, who had helped to make the rifle government 
of Watauga and Nashville, had a part in framing this 
constitution, and that Andrew Jackson was also a mem- 
ber of the convention. 

The work of the Spanish during all this time must 
now have consideration. In 1784 Don Estevan Miro 
succeeded Galvez as Governor of New Orleans, and he 
was as urgent as his King could wish to extend the 
actual power of Spain over the unsettled part of the 
Great Valley east of the Mississippi. 

His first move was to unite with Alexander McGil- 
livray, (a half-breed Creek, whose Scotch father had 
given him a good education), in the formation of a 
league of Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees and Chickasaws 
against the Americans. In May, 1784, Miro, at Mobile 
and Pensacola, met delegations of the various tribes, 
and by large subsidies of supplies started them on a 
desultory system of raiding known as the Oconee war. 

Previous to this time the Americans had opened a 
trade with the Spanish. Flat-boats had been built, 
loaded with cured meats, grain, flour, whiskey and furs, 

363 



A History of the 

and floated to New Orleans. Spanish law forbade the 
trade, but Spanish officials, for a consideration, encour- 
aged it more or less, though every speculating boatman 
was sure to be robbed sooner or later. Miro became 
active in the system of robbing. 

While Miro urged the Indians to war and destroyed 
the river traffic of the Americans, Don Diego Gardoqui 
was sent by the Spanish Government to negotiate a 
treaty with Congress by which Spain was to control the 
Mississippi and gain other advantages. He was to 
offer desirable concessions in trade with Spain, (con- 
cessions, however, which could be withdrawn at any 
time), in return for what was demanded in the Great 
Valley. The seaport merchants were eager to make 
the treaty, but hearing the turmoil west of the moun- 
tains — the talk of independence by such men as Wil- 
kinson, and the just complaints of the producers — Con- 
gress refused to do anything. 

Of course nothing was done — nothing could be 
done — to open the Mississippi. In fact, Spanish traders 
began to spread up the river, and thus several were 
found at Vincennes when Clark, during a raid on the 
Indians (August, 1786), arrived there. One of the 
traders, whose goods Clark confiscated, is said to have 
lost $10,000. 

Clark's work was illegal, but it was not unprovoked, 
for many an American had been ruined by Spanish con- 
fiscations. Clark contemplated a filibuster expedition 
down the river, at least as far as Natchez, at this time, 
but nothing was done. 

While Clark contemplated the manful if illegal 
raid on Natchez, Wilkinson adopted a diplomatic 

364 



Mississippi Valley. 

method of freeing trade on the Mississippi that was 
entirely successful for himself. Going to Natchez (fall 
of 1786), he established friendly relations with Don 
Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, the commandant. The next 
spring he loaded a fleet of flat-boats with "flour, bacon, 
butter and tobacco," and floating down the rivers, 
reached New Orleans in June. No Spanish ofiicer 
molested him, and he sold his produce at a price that 
yielded him $35,000 profit, after the usual division of 
spoils with the officials. How great was the price that 
he paid for immunity may be inferred by the fact that 
3,000 barrels of flour were shipped to Philadelphia, 
consigned to Gardoqui, the profits on which made up 
his share of the plunder. 

But it was not by bribery alone that Wilkinson suc- 
ceeded. The threat of a raid on Natchez had impressed 
the Spanish authorities. They knew that on the upper 
waters lived "a Respectable Body of Prime Riflemen," 
numbering more than 20,000. If these riflemen were 
once let loose, a freshet of fire would come down the 
river, and sweep the Spanish into the Gulf. George 
Rogers Clark, at Vincennes, was not the only one who 
had threatened, or was to threaten, such a revenge for 
injuries suffered, and Wilkinson was adroit enough to 
bribe with one hand while with the other he delicately 
pointed to the angry hosts of Kentucky and Tennessee. 

Wilkinson went still further, but it is a shameful 
tale, and need not be elaborated. He sold himself to 
the Spanish. Plans for delivering the settled, as well 
as the unsettled, parts of the Great Valley into Spanish 
control were concerted and placed on paper. These 
documents are yet in existence, as areletters thatWilkin- 

365 



A History of the 

son wrote, and all unite to show his treasonable inten- 
tions. But worse is yet to be told. To further the plans 
for rousing- the frontiersmen to desperation, Wilkinson 
advised Miro to set the Southern Indians raiding the 
home-makers at a time when no raids were to be ex- 
pected. To further his own sordid schemes, this man 
strove to desolate the outer line of homes, and to spill 
the blood of the women and children living in them. 

A number of the most prominent citizens of Ken- 
tucky became involved in the Spanish conspiracy. John 
Sevier, when his State of Franklin was going to pieces, 
offered to throw himself "into the arms of His Spanish 
Majesty." James Robertson opened negotiations with 
Miro, and to please the Spaniard, named a district 
(what was later a county) of Tennessee "Mero." 

One can believe that these men (as they afterwards 
asserted) had no intention of becoming loyal subjects 
of Spain. They had, if one may use the slang of to-day, 
surplus products to burn ; to find a market for these and 
so realize the financial prosperity for which they had 
endured the hardships of the wilderness, they were 
ready to cut loose from the United States and join 
Spain. But if this had been done they would have 
served Spain as the Texans served Mexico. 

Wilkinson, Judge Henry Innes and some others 
were sordid traitors. They accepted Spanish money as 
the price of efforts to detach the territory west of the 
mountains from the United States for the benefit of 
Spain. But more than half of those who talked of 
uniting with Spain were men who were looking to the 
ultimate expansion of United States territory by fili- 
bustering methods. 

366 



'to 



Mississippi Valley. 

In 1788 Col. George Morgan, of New Jersey, after 
vainly trying to get from Congress a grant of land for 
a colony near Kaskaskia, accepted (October 3d) a grant 
of 12,000,000 acres from the Spanish, to be located 
around New Madrid, Gardoqui had promoted this 
scheme to draw off the adventurous from the American 
frontier. Free transportation down the Ohio and aid 
in building houses were promised to the emigrants, but 
no great number of home-makers went across the river. 

It was at this period (the end of 1788) that Col. 
John Connolly (he who precipitated Lord Dunmore's 
war) came to Kentucky to see what could be done to 
turn the discontented frontiersmen toward Canada for 
relief. The British had planned to send 10,000 men to 
sweep the Spanish from the Mississippi. If the fron- 
tiersmen joined in this movement the river would 
quickly be theirs, and the markets of the world would, 
under the British flag, be open to them. 

Connolly disclosed the entire plan to Wilkinson. 
If Wilkinson had unselfishly desired the instant pros- 
perity of the Mississippi Valley, regardless of the rights 
of the Union, as he professed, here was a golden oppor- 
tunity. But sincerity and unselfishness were in no 
degree qualities of Wilkinson's character, and he would 
have nothing to do with a people by nature honest. He 
saw clearly that his personal interests were to be pro- 
moted best by adhering to the intriguing Spanish ; and 
he had Connolly mobbed and frightened out of the 
country. 

As commonly told, the story of the Kentucky and 
Tennessee region, in the years following the Revolu- 
tion, is doleful reading. The men most frequently 

367 



A History of the 

named in the story were sordid and traitorous, but they 
were not fair representatives of the people as a whole. 
They were to the whole people as the desperadoes in 
some frontier towns w'ere to the general populations of 
those communities. The more one considers the gen- 
eral character of the frontier home-seekers the more ad- 
mirable they appear. And even their threats and ram- 
pant attitude, under the restrictions placed on the com- 
merce of the Mississippi, were, in the long run, of the 
utmost benefit to the Nation. For it is absolutely cer- 
tain that but for their rampant attitude the merchants 
of the coast cities would have sold the Mississippi for 
a Spanish song. And how their rampant attitude af- 
fected the Nation when the French came once more to 
the Mississippi shall be told in the final chapter. 




36S 




WILLIAM CHARLES COLE CLAIBORNE. 

First territorial Governor, as also tlie first Governor of the State of 

Louisana. One of the Commissioners appointed to take 

possession of Louisiana after its purchase. 




XXIII 

THE NATION GETS ITS OWN. 

Speculators in Georgia Land Start the Movement for 
Ousting the Spanish — The "Inevitable and Irresisti- 
ble Intrigue of the Spanish Nature" — Citizen Genet 
and His Mississippi Scheme — The Southern Indians 
Sent against the Frontier — A Satisfactory Treaty 
Made, but the Spanish Were Not Willing to Yield 
the Territory then until a Sufficient Force of Sol-, 
diers to Take It Was on the Ground. 

After the inauguration of Washington, Guardoqui 
returned to Spain, and the Spanish intrigues degen- 
erated into a struggle to retain what Spain already held 
— including Natchez — within the American boundaries, 
as described in the Treaty with Great Britain. Galvez 
had conquered Natchez as well as Mobile from the 
British. No one disputed Spain's right to hold Mobile, 

369 



A History of the 

and the Spanish naturally argued that no treaty with 
Great Britain could give the United States a right to 
Natchez. In fact it is not wholly unreasonable to sup- 
pose that when Richard Oswald, the British commis- 
sioner in the treaty of 1782-83, assigned the 31st par- 
allel of latitude as the Southern limit of the United 
States on the Mississippi, he had in mind a future con- 
flict between Spain and the United States over Natchez 
— a conflict that might in some way benefit British in- 
terests. 

A movement that looked to the establishment of 
American control in the Great Valley down to the 31st 
parallel was begun in Georgia, the legislature of which 
sold (December, 1789) large tracts of the land, claimed 
west of the mountains, to various companies of specula- 
tors, who were required to defend their titles at their 
own expense. The South Carolina company, with a 
grant of 10,000,000 acres, employed one Dr. James 
O'Fallon as agent and manager. O'Fallon issued cir- 
culars inviting emigrants, and telling that the plan was 
to erect the territory to be acquired into an Amer- 
ican State. At the same time he wrote to Governor 
Miro, at New Orleans, with a view, as he pretended, 
of making the grant a Spanish colony. Sevier and 
Robertson were expected to join in, and Wilkinson 
wrote to Miro recommending O'Fallon. But O'Fallon 
indiscreetly said he should have 10,000 of the "Prime 
Riflemen" of the frontier in his colony, and Miro was 
unable to grow enthusiastic over the prospect of receiv- 
ing any such company of emigrants. He did not refuse 
to receive them, but the scheme failed when Washing- 
ton learned its object; for he said he would suppress 

370 




KDMUND CHARLES GENET. 
Better known as " Citizen Genet." From a painting by Fouquet in 1793. 



Mississippi Valley. 

the expedition by force, and everybody concerned knew 
that Washington was a square- jawed man. 

After the admission of Kentucky as a member of 
the Union, (the admission was to date from June i, 
1792), the loyalty of the Kentuckians was to be no 
longer doubted, and the "Territory south of the Ohio" 
having been already organized, the Spanish Minister to 
the United States intimated (December 6, 1791) that 
Spain was ready to settle all disputes. 

But, as Winsor says, "it was not long before the 
inevitable and irrepressible intrigue of the Spanish na- 
ture began to show itself." Miro was transferred, and 
Baron Carondelet was brought from Guatamala to New 
Orleans. Carondelet, to strengthen the Spanish posi- 
tion, at once started the southern Indians raiding the 
frontier, as Miro had done, while the negotiations for 
the .settlement of disputed claims were allowed to drag 
on in the poco tiempo and manana manner in Spanish 
affairs. 

Then the shadow of the French Revolution reached 
out to the United States. "Citizen" Genet was sent 
over as Minister. He arrived on April 8, 1793. He 
brought 300 blank army and navy commissions with 
him, and sent an agent to Kentucky to enlist enough 
men there to help the French of New Orleans throw 
off the Spanish yoke. George Rogers Clark was the 
chosen head of this proposed expedition, although for 
years he had been a common drunkard. But how much 
of substance there was to the intrigue appears from the 
fact that Clark received only $400 cash for the expenses 
of the 2,000 men he was to organize and conduct down 
the river. 

371 



A History of the 

Carondelet, however, heard that a milHon dollars 
instead of $400 had been supplied, and in terror he 
appealed to Governor Simcoe, of Canada, for help in 
establishing the Spanish power in the Illinois country. 
Simcoe would have done anything to injure the Ameri- 
cans, but the request arrived after he had learned that 
"Mad Anthony" Wayne had trained 1,000 men to load 
rifles as they ran, and it seemed advisable not to accede 
to the Spanish appeal. 

However, Washington extinguished the plan. Fort 
Massac was garrisoned by some of Wayne's men, and 
Clark's $400 was soon dissipated. Genet, because of his 
insolence, was deprived of his position as Minister, ( he 
remained as a private citizen in this country, however) 
and Jefferson, who had been a blatant supporter of the 
French revolutionists, was eliminated from Washing- 
ton's cabinet. 

The cool and righteous course of Washington, how- 
ever, roused the animosity of the people west of the 
mountains, who had seen in Genet's scheme a hope of 
opening the Mississippi. They were roused still further 
by the raiding Creeks, whom Carondelet was then sub- 
sidizing to the extent of $55,000 a year, to keep them 
on the warpath. The trouble with England having 
been cleared away by Wayne's victory and Jay's treaty, 
the time for a settlement of the Mississippi question had 
come. 

The outlook, judged by previous work in that line 
was not encouraging. "John Jay, who remained long 
at Madrid during the Revolutionary period, failed even 
to obtain formal recognition as Minister." The attempt 
which, as Secretary of State, he afterward made to 

372 




THOMAS PINCKNEY. 

He arranged a treaty with Spain in 1794, which secured to the 
United States the irec navig^ation of the Mississippi River. 



Mississippi Valley. 

negotiate a treaty in Philadelphia with Gardoqui, the 
Spanish Minister, also failed. In 1790 Jefferson, then 
Secretary of State, instructed Mr. Carmichael, the 
American charge at Madrid, to intimate to Spain that 
the question of right to navigate the Mississippi must be 
settled. But this led to no result. In 1791 Mr. Car- 
michael and Mr. Short, then charge at Paris, were ap- 
pointed commissioners to negotiate a treaty with Spain, 
in which provisions should be made for adjusting boun- 
daries, for recognizing a claim to the right of navigat- 
ing the Mississippi, and for settling the conditions of 
commercial intercourse. But Spain, shocked at the ex- 
ecution of Louis XVI., was turning with a friendly 
spirit toward England. The relations of the American 
Government with England were strained, and nothing 
was effected by the commission." But by 1794 Spain 
and England had drifted apart, and Jaudenes, the Span- 
ish Minister to the United States, intimated to Ran- 
dolph, the Secretary of State, that Spain would negoti- 
ate with a minister of proper dignity and position" 
(James B. Angell). 

Accordingly, in the fall of 1794, Thomas Pinckney, 
then minister to England, was selected to negotiate a 
treaty with Spain. But before he could reach Madrid, 
the Georgia Legislature sold 30,000,000 acres of land 
lying along the 31st parallel to a company of specula- 
tors, and this act (known as the Yazoo fraud) encour- 
aged the Spanish to make one more effort to persuade 
the Kentuckians to abandon the Union. 

Commandant Gayoso, of Natchez, went North as 
far as the Chickasaw Bluffs, and after buying a strip of 
land of the Chickasaw Indians, built a fort there. It 

373 



A History of the 

Avas built where Memphis now stands. Gayoso then 
went on to New Madrid and opened communications 
with Wilkinson and others who had been in the in- 
trigue with Miro. But before anything could be ac- 
complished by Gayoso, Pinckney negotiated a treaty 
by which Spain agreed to yield all the territory claimed 
by the United States. 

Pinckney had reached Madrid on June 28, 1795, 
but "such were the obstacles and prevarications usually 
inherent in Spanish diplomacy," (says Winsor), that 
Pinckney was kept w^aiting in idleness for four months. 
At last, as the end of October drew near, Pinckney de- 
manded his passports and prepared to leave. Then, 
according to the custom "usually inherent in Spanish 
diplomacy," the Spaniards became ready for active 
work, and a satisfactory treaty was written and signed 
in three days. 

The treaty w^as ratified by the United States Senate 
at the end of February, 1796, and was proclaimed on 
August 2 of the same year. 

This treaty gave the United States the bounds ob- 
tained under the treaty with Great Britain, and pro- 
vided for a joint commission to meet at Natchez and 
survey the line. It also recognized the right of the 
Americans to navigate the Mississippi freely, and it 
granted them the right to deposit in New Orleans all 
goods for export free of duty, and free of all other 
charges, save a reasonable rent for warehouses. 

The people of the Great Valley now hoped for a 
speedy ending of their troubles on the rivers; but even 
after they had made the treaty the Spanish were yet to 
shuffle and evade to the utmost limit of human patience. 

374 




A schoolboy's map of the united states, in I7g6. 



Mississippi Valley. 

Andrew Ellicott was appointed American commis- 
sioner to meet the Spanish commissioner and survey the 
boundary Hne from the Mississippi eastward. He left 
Philadelphia September i6, 1796. He was joined on 
the Ohio by Lieutenant Piercy S. Pope and a squad of 
men to serve as a guard in the wilderness. On ap- 
proaching New Madrid, Ellicott was stopped by the 
Commandant and a letter was handed him wherein 
Governor Carondelet of New Orleans ordered him to 
remain at New Madrid until the Spanish forces had 
been removed from Natchez, and explained that low 
water in the river had prevented this removal thereto- 
fore. 

Ellicott, of course, disregarded the order; what he 
thought of the untruthful explanation may be imagined. 
At the Chickasaw Bluffs the Spanish commandant fired 
a cannon across the course of the flotilla, and when it 
was brought to, and Ellicott told him about the object 
of the expedition and the treaty, he expressed "wide- 
eyed wonder," as if he had never heard of such a mat- 
ter. 

Two days above Natchez a messenger met Ellicott 
with a letter wherein Commandant Gayoso explained 
that the evacuation had not occurred for want of suita- 
ble vessels. He requested that the American troops re- 
main at a point sixty miles up the river lest misunder- 
standings arise between Americans and Spaniards. To 
this Ellicott agreed, and himself reached Natchez on 
Febraury 24, 1797. 

To follow in detail the shufflings, the deliberate and 
oft-repeated falsehoods, and the insolent demands of 
Gayoso and Carondelet in the days following Ellicott's 

375 



A History of the 

arrival, would be needlessly wearisome and exasper- 
ating to the reader. Any one wishing the details can 
find them in vol. iii, Waite's "American State Pa- 
pers." It is enough to say that Gayoso, with profuse 
professions of friendship, named a date for commen- 
cing the survey. At the same time, however, he set his 
soldiers at work strengthening the fort. 

On seeing the men at work on the fort, Ellicott sent 
for his soldiers. Then the Spanish appealed to the 
Chickasaws and Choctaws to attack the Americans, 
but Ellicott secured their neutrality. A story that the 
British were coming down from Canada to attack New 
Orleans (Spain was at war with England), was given 
as a reason for repairing the fort. "The British must 
be met at Natchez, and repulsed — como siempre!" said 
the Spaniards. 

In May, 1797, the Spanish surveyor arrived, but 
Gayoso refused to begin the survey ; in fact he went on 
strengthening the fort. And at that the citizens of 
Natchez, (nine-tenths of whom were Anglo-Saxons in 
blood and despised the Spanish), rose up and took 
possession of the town. 

With a committee of Americans in charge of Nat- 
chez, Ellicott waited the movements of the Spanish. 
Carondelet was transferred and Gayoso thereafter held 
such power as remained to the Spanish. He removed 
his headquarters to New Orleans leaving Don Stephen 
Minor in command of the fort at Natchez. 

The patience of the Administration at Washington 
during all this time was extraordinary, but it is to be ex- 
plained in part by the aggressive attitude of France. 
The French Government was then sweeping our com- 

?>7^ 




JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE. 

Founder of the State of Georgia (1733). 



Mississippi Valley. 

merce from the West Indies, and was bringing on the 
actual if undeclared war that gave our new navy its 
first opportunity to show its quality. A war with one 
nation at a time was all that the Government wished to 
support. 

Nevertheless, on May 20, 1797, General Wilkinson, 
then chief of the army, acting under instructions from 
the War Department, ordered Capt. Isaac Guion to go 
with a sufficient force down the river and take posses- 
sion of the various posts within United States territory. 
Guion had fought under Montgomery at Quebec, and 
under Wayne at the Battle of the Fallen Timbers. He 
was an all-around fighting man, and his reputation was^ 
not unknown in New Orleans. 

"Events now moved rapidly, as they usually do* 
when Spanish obstinacy gives way to fear," (Winsor). 
Orders were issued for the evacuation of the Chicka- 
saw Bluffs, and a station at the Walnut Hills, (Vicks- 
burg), and then, on March 30, 1798, "under cover of 
the night," Minor and his men sneaked away like crim- 
inals. 

On the morning of March 31, 1798, the American 
flag floated in the breeze above the fort on the Natchez 
Bluffs — for the first time. 

For fifteen years — from 1783 to 1798 — the Ameri- 
can people had endured the buffetings and the aggres- 
sions of the Governments of Great Britain, France and 
Spain, — bullies all three, who were willing to take every 
advantage of the struggling young Republic as long as 
they felt themselves powerful enough to do so without 
danger. Worse yet, the Nation had been obliged to 
struggle under the selfishness and ignorance of its legis- 

377 



A Histoj'y of the 

lators, and (in the West), under the schemes of sor^'.i 1 
traitors. But the sober, sound sense and unyielding 
persistence of the home-makers prevailed, and on 
March 31, 1798, the Gridiron Flag covered the whole 
Nation. 




378 




ROliERT R. IJVINCSTON. 

The cession of Louisiana to the I'nitcd States was greatly 
aided, if not accomplished through, his efforts. 




XXIV 

THE GARDEN OF AMERICA FOR AMERICANS ONLY. 

Organization of the Mississippi Territory — Throngs of 
Emigrants Flock to the Region — The Significant 
Story of PhiHp Nolan — Boone as a Spanish Don — 
The Growth of Trade at New Orleans — Napoleon 
Sees the Futility of His Scheme for Recovering the 
Original French Territory in America — He Deter- 
mines to Give England a Maritime Rival and Suc- 
ceeds—The Treaty Ratified— When the Gridiron 
Flag First Covered the Mighty Valley from Brim to 
Brim. 

Without unnecessary delay, after the flag floated 
over Natchez, Congress organized (April, 1798), the 
Mississippi Territory. Winthrop Sargent reached 
Natchez, charged with the work of organization, on 
August 6, and Wilkinson, "as general of the American 

379 



A History of the 

Army, and bearing in his bosom the secrets that made 
his prominence a blot both on himself and his govern- 
ment," came on August 26 with a military force. 

Emigrants followed in numbers. In a letter dated 
March 2, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following: 

"Mr. Randolph, allured by the immensely profitable 
culture of cotton, had come to a resolution to go to the 
Mississippi, and there purchase lands and establish all 
his negroes in that culture." 

This statement is of interest because Mr. Randolph 
was a type of the class of emigrants to the Mississippi 
Territory. They were people of wealth who bought 
large tracts of land. The development of the Whitney 
cotton gin, (1793), had made cotton immensely profit- 
able, and to that crop these planters devoted themselves. 

In the watershed of the Ohio, the men whose only 
capital was carried in their heads, found their Canaan, 
and there the growth of population was unprecedented. 
A thousand flat boats passed down the Ohio in 1796, 
and it is likely that they carried at least twenty people 
each, on the average. A regular packet service was es- 
tablished between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, that year. 
The boat was fitted with musket proof cabins, and six 
one-pound swivels were mounted on its bulwarks. It 
was propelled up stream with oars and sails. 

When Spain as well as England had been thrown 
out of the United States territory, the hurrying crowds 
bound west increased still more rapidly. In 1790, Ten- 
nessee had a population, (U. S. Census report), of 35,- 
791; in 1800 it had 105,602. Kentucky, in 1790, had 
72)-^77) in 1800, it had 220,955. And the stream of 
immigrants continued increasing in volume as the coun- 

380 



Mississippi Valley. 

try filled up. This stream was, in fact, a human fresh- 
et that spread westward till it reached the Mississippi, 
and there ceased to flow. A paper levee stopped its 
progress, for a time, but it did not cease to rise against 
the paper levee. By a treaty the splendid wild land 
across the river belonged to Spain, but by the inexor- 
able law of race progress it belonged to them who 
would use it. 

In 1800 the freshet topped the levees. Filibuster- 
ing expeditions crossed the Mississppi to make settle- 
ments on Spanish land. They were of the class that 
afterwards settled in Texas and detached that state 
from Mexico. One Phillip Nolan and a party that 
made a settlement on the Brazos river, in the fall of 
1800, passed the winter in catching and training wild 
horses. It was a legitimate business ; they were at that 
time harming no one. But they had not observed any 
of the formalities that Spanish law and custom required 
of immigrants, and in March a Spanish force, 300 
strong, surrounded their shanties at daylight. Nolan's 
party numbered less than thirty. The difference in the 
forces is significant. It shows how the Spanish re- 
garded "a Respectable Body of Prime Riflemen." 
Nolan was killed, and the others were captured and held 
prisoners in the Mexican settlements for some years af- 
terward. 

In the meantime some settlers had passed over to the 
Spanish side of the great river, as prevously told, with 
the Spanish consent — Daniel Boone among the rest. 
The public records show that he moved to "(upper) 
Louisiana before the year 1798; and, on the 24th day of 
January, 1798, he received from Zenon Trudeau a con- 

381 



A History of the 

cession for i,ooo arpents of land, situated in the dis- 
trict of Femme Osage; had the same surveyed on the 
9th of January, 1800, and was appointed by Don 
Charles D. Delassus, (then Lieutenant Governor of 
Upper Louisiana), Commandant of the Femme Osage 
District" in Missouri, on June 1 1. 

But notwithstanding this kindly receptic»n given to 
Boone, the Spanish were exceedingly jealous of these 
new settlers. They told each immigrant that while he 
might hold what religious views he pleased, his children 
must become Catholics or get out of the country; and 
the Bishop at New Orleans complained bitterly of this 
small measure of religious tolerance. 

Naturally but few of the home-makers migrated to 
the Spanish domain, and naturally, too, the restless and 
lawless became the more inclined to go there as filibus- 
ters. In a small way the old buccaneer spirit prevailed. 

During all this time the commerce of the Mississippi 
grew with the population. With the opening of trade, 
after the treaty of 1795, although through shipments 
were allowed free of duty, thereafter, the custom house 
receipts of New Orleans, in the ensuing year, were 
double what they had been in any preceding year. 

How this trade increased may be gathered from the 
following statement, quoted from Cable's sketch of New 
Orleans in the U. S. Census report for 1880: 

*'Li 1790 the port of New Orleans was neither open 
nor closed. Commerce was possible but dangerous, 
subject to the corrupt caprices of Spanish commandants 
and customs officers, and full exasperating uncertain- 
ties. 

"In 1802, 158 Americans, 104 Spaniards and 3 
382 



Mississippi Valley. 

French merchantmen, [ships of the sea], in all 31,241 
register tons, sailed from her harbor loaded. * * * 
34,000 bales of cotton; 4,500 hogsheads of sugar; 800 
casks — equivalent to 2,000 barrels — of molasses; rice, 
peltries, indigo, lumber and sundries to the value of 
$500,000; 50,000 barrels of flour ; 3,000 barrels of beef 
and pork; 2,000 hogsheads of tobacco, and smaller 
quantities of corn, butter, hams, meal, lard, staves and 
cordage passed across the already famous levee." 

But while the merchants west of the Alleghanies 
were growing rich and the home-builders were not only 
adding to the comforts of their rude houses, but were 
reaching a point where luxuries w-ere not unknown, a 
rumor that Spain had sold the Louisiana Territory to 
France spread. (1801), over the Great Valley. Ru- 
mors to this effect had been heard as early as 1797 — 
unfounded rumors that soon died out — but this time 
the rumor persisted. And as it gained credence the 
people became wild with indignation and anger. 

To fully appreciate the excitement thus caused one 
must recall the course of events in France during the 
years that had recently passed. For, beginning in 
1794, the leaders of the mob that had ruled France, 
during her great revolution, in order to coerce the Uni- 
ted States into joining France in her wars w^ith the 
other nations of Europe, and in order to enrich them- 
selves, had sent out warships, privateers and armed 
ships without commissions, to prey on American com- 
merce. Tliese pirates had swept American shipping 
almost entirely off the high seas. And the story of the 
"French Spoliations" was as well known in the Miss- 
issippi as in the coast cities. 

383 



A History of the 

Further tlian that was the fact that the French revo- 
lution had evolved Napoleon, and he had become the 
ruler of France under the title of First Consul, (No- 
vember 10, 1799). Fully realizing that to add to the 
glory of France was to strengthen his own power. Na- 
poleon had reached out to grasp the colonial possessions 
that had been lost before his day. Toussainte I'Over- 
ture had set up a republic in San Domingo, and had 
maintained it by force of arms. Late in 1801 Napo- 
leon sent an army to resubjugate San Domingo and re- 
duce the negroes to slavery once more. Le Clerc, Na- 
poleon's brother-in-law, commanded the expedition. In 
San Domingo, Le Clerc treated the American mer- 
chants much as he treated the fighting natives ; he con- 
fiscated their property and thrust them into prison with- 
out trial or means of redress. The story of Le Clerc's 
outrages followed the rumors of the French acquisi- 
tion of Louisiana to the Mississippi Valley. 

The French who had by sheer piracy ruined the 
American commerce on the high seas, and had robbed 
and maltreated the Americans in San Domingo, were 
coming to take possession of Louisiana — of New Or- 
leans and the mouth of the Mississippi ! There was 
ample cause for excitement west of the Alleghanies. 

As to the facts at the bottom of the rumors it ap- 
pears that it w^as in 1800 that Napoleon first determined 
to acquire Louisiana, and that in August of that year 
he sent his confidential friend Alexandre Berthier as 
minister to Madrid. Berthier negotiated a treaty, dated 
October i, 1800, by which France was to take Louisiana 
and Florida, and give in exchange *'a kingdom of at 
least a million people made up of French conquests in 

384 




THOMAS JKFFKKSON. 



Mississippi Valley. 

the north of Italy, over which was to be set the Duke 
of Parma," son-in-law of the Spanish king, (Hosmer). 

This treaty was not ratified by the king of Spain, 
but one negotiated by Lucien Bonaparte and dated 
March 21, 1801, was ratified. It gave Louisiana to the 
French in exchange for Tuscany, over which the Duke 
of Parma was to reign as king. Both treaties were 
negotiated at San Ildefonso, where the Spanish king 
lived, and the treaty of cession is known by the name of 
the royal residence. 

At the time the last treaty was made, and while the 
rumors of it were agitating the people west of the 
Alleghanies, Thomas Jefferson was President of the 
United States. Jefferson, if not the originator, was at 
least the most conspicuous advocate of the porcupine 
policy of dealing with foreign enemies. In order to 
command the respect of European nations and to pro- 
tect American commerce in foreign waters Jefferson 
built scores of gunboats that were manceuvred with 
oars, and confessedly fit for use only in our harbors. 
Moreover, he had idealized if he had not idolized the 
French. He had spoken of the excitement raised in the 
United States when "Citizen" Genet was distributing 
piratical commissions from Charleston to Philadelphia 
as a revival of the "spirit of 1776." 

But Jefferson was a politician first of all. Foster, 
in his "Century of American Diplomacy," says he was 
the greatest politician the Nation has yet produced. 
And Jefferson's most enthusiastic supporters were 
found in the Mississippi Valley. Franklin had said 
that a man might as well sell his front door as for the 
United States to give up the right of the free navigation 

385 



A History of the 

of the Mississippi, and Jefferson understood very well 
that the western clamor over the supposed French ac- 
quisition of Louisiana was not empty declamation; 
but neither he nor any one else then saw where that 
oratorical tornado would carry the country. 

What Jefferson did on hearing the clamor was to 
instruct our Ministers at Paris, London and Madrid 
to do all they could to prevent the transfer. Eventually 
the rumors said that Spain had already ceded the ter- 
ritory to France, and at that Jefferson, in a letter to 
Robert R. Livingston, American minister to France, 
dated April i8, 1802, said: 

"There is on the globe one single spot the possessor 
of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is 
New Orleans. * * * France placing herself at that 
door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. * * * 
Circumstances render it impossible that France and 
the United States can continue long friends, when 
they meet in so irritable a position. The day that 
France takes possession of New Orleans * * * we 
must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. 
We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force." 

And then to much talk about friendly relations he 
added the unmistakable statement that "it is not from 
a fear of France that we deprecate this measure pro- 
posed by her." 

Madison, Jefferson's secretary of State, in a letter 
of instructions to Livingston, said : "The LTnited States 
would take the most vigorous measures, even though 
they should involve war, to avert such a calamity" as 
the cession of Louisiana to France. 

But Jefferson did not really mean it. At heart he 
386 



Mississippi Valley. 

had no intention of fighting- to keep the Mississippi. 
In October, in spite of the manly words quoted, he told 
Livingston that the French occupation of Louisiana 
was not "important enough to risk a breach of peace." 
He had talked and written in brave words merely 
to humor the people; his words were not sincere. If 
the simile may be allowed, Jefferson felt himself in 
charge of a growing kid on which the British lion, 
the French wolf and the Spanish coyote were looking 
with hungry eyes. He supposed that if only this kid 
could be allowed to feed peaceably in the pastures of 
the world until it was as big and fat — especially as 
fat — as a kid could become, it would then be entirely 
safe from the attacks of the lion, the wolf and the 
coyote. The quantity of the fat was to protect it; 
and in order that fat might be accumulated as fast 
as possible the groivth of horns must he prevented. A 
hornless goat, rolling fat, was literally Jefferson's ideal 
representative of a great nation. He did say to the 
British minister that if we were compelled to draw the 
sword we would "throw away the scabbard," but he 
did not mean to draw the sword. A nation whose 
every effort at home should be devoted to accumulation 
of "material resources," and whose foreign policy 
should be regulated by those able to "palliate and en- 
dure," and, if the full truth be told, those who could 
purchase favors, — that was the Jefferson ideal. For- 
tunately the Nation was able to survive the fierce on- 
slaughts that Jefferson's hornless policy made possible 
during the first ten years of the Nineteenth Century, 
and different ideals now prevail. 

In the course of May, 1802, authentic information 

387 



A History of the 

reached the United States that Spain had sold out to 
France. Consequently, during the summer of 1802, 
Livingston was kept busy trying to purchase New Or- 
leans and the two Floridas, which, it was rumored, 
had also been transferred to France, but he could make 
no progress in his negotiations. Napoleon had ob- 
tained peace at the treaty of Amiens. March 25, 
1802, and was contemplating the recovery of all the 
ancient French rights in America. He supposed that 
he could readily conquer all the Mississippi Valley, if 
not Canada, and he ordered an army of 10,000 men, 
under General Bernadotte, to prepare to sail for New 
Orleans. General Victor was afterwards (August, 
1802) substituted for Bernadotte, and the preparations 
were pressed with enthusiasm during the fall follow- 
ing Victor's appointment. 

In order to deceive the Americans Napoleon an- 
nounced that Victor was going to reinforce the French 
army in San Domingo, but the truth of the matter be- 
came very well known throughout the United States. 
The excitement and indignation caused by this knowl- 
edge were soon to be increased, however, to a far higher 
pitch. On October 16, 1802, in the midst of the most 
prosperous shipping season the merchants of the Miss- 
issippi Valley had ever known, the Spanish Intendant 
at New Orleans, Don Juan Venturo Morales, ordered 
that the American right of deposit should thence- 
forth cease. Foreign commerce, save in Spanish ships 
only, was to be stopped — this in the face of the fact 
that a free export trade had been allowed for seven 
years since the signing of the treaty permitting such 
commerce. 

388 



Mississippi Valley. 

As the report of the order of Morales, in violation 
of the treaty, spread up the Great Valley, the people 
almost to a man were found ready to grasp their rifles, 
three feet and six inches long, and embark for New Or- 
leans. There was talk of raising enough men in the 
Mississippi Territory alone to capture New Orleans 
immediately, and it could have been done easily, had 
the right leader appeared. 

It was natural that the Americans should suppose 
that Napoleon had dictated the Morales prohibition of 
commerce and the American right of deposit at New 
Orleans. In this it appears they were in error as to the 
fact, although as to the feeling of Napoleon they were 
entirely right. Morales had acted on his own impulses. 
The Governor of New Orleans, (Salcedo Gayoso had 
died after a drunken spree with Gen. Wilkinson), op- 
posed the order. The Spanish minister to the United 
States opposed it with anger. But under Spanish law. 
Morales could prevail until an order came from the 
Spanish King. 

With this new aggression to urge him on, Jefferson 
still baulked at the thought of securing the rights of 
the Nation by the use of force. He was determined 
not to use force. His message to Congress, read De- 
cember 15, 1802, "discussed everything except the 
danger which engrossed men's minds." (Henry 
Adams's "History of the United States"). "No 
change" was "deemed necessary in our military es- 
tablishment," and as for the navy the chief item of 
new expense recommended was a "dock within which 
our present vessels may be laid up dry and under 
cover from the sun." In a special message to Con- 

389 



A History of the 

gress on December 22, 1802, he spoke of Morales's 
act as "the irregular proceeding at New Orleans," and 
said he had not lost "a moment in causing every step 
to be taken which the occasion claimed." On January 
5, 1803* he transmitted to the house, "a statement of 
the militia" of the various states, (a showing of the 
mailed fist, that!), and then on the nth, in a special 
message, he nominated James Monroe as min- 
ister extraordinary, to act "jointly or either on 
the death of the other," with Livingston, in or- 
der to "enter into a treaty or convention with the 
First Consul of France," for the purchase of New Or- 
leans and the French territory east of the Mississippi. 
The nomination was promptly confirmed. 

As Henry Adams has pointed out, Monroe was sent 
on this special mission, "not so much to purchase New 
Orleans, as to restore political quiet at home." In his 
letter asking Monroe to accept the mission, Jefferson 
said: 

"The agitation of the public mind on occasion of 
the late suspension of our right of deposit at New Or- 
leans is extreme. In the western country it is natural 
and grounded on honest motives. In the Federalists 
generally, and especially those of Congress, the ob- 
ject is to force us into war if possible, in order to de- 
range our finances; or if this cannot be done, to detach 
the western country to them as their best friends, and 
,thus get into power," 

And when the nomination had been confirmed Jef- 
ferson again wrote to say that "the measure has si- 
lenced the Federalists here." 

To silence the Federalists was the thought upper- 
390 




JAMES MUxNlvOE. 

The original portrait by Vanderlyn, from which this was engraved 
by Durand, can be seen in the City Hall, New York. 



Mississippi Valley. 

most in Jefferson's mind in this crisis brought on by- 
foreign aggression, and the next thought was to "palh- 
ate and endure" (letter to Dr. Priestley), the aggres- 
sion in such a fashion as to soothe his own party. 

Meantime, however. Napoleon's hopes of conquest 
in America had vanished. Barbe Marbois, one of 
Napoleon's ministers, had pointed out that to occupy 
New Orleans was to drive the United States to declare 
war against France at the first shot of a gun in Eu- 
rope, and he was ready to ask, as Jefferson had asked, 
will "a short lived possession" of New Orleans be an 
equivalent to France "for the transfer of such a weight 
into the scales of her enemy ?" 

Moreover, Napoleon's agents in the United States 
had repeatedly written him that it would be impossible 
to accomplish his purpose. The agents knew the num- 
ber and the quality of the "Prime Riflemen" of the 
west. They had doubtless heard of the men whom 
"Mad" Anthony Wayne trained to load rifles while 
charging the enemy, and if not, they knew that the 
frontiersmen always shot to kill. Pinchon, the French 
charge, wrote to Talleyrand to say that "however 
timid Mr. Jefferson may be, I find [among the people] 
in general a bad temper as regards us; and I cannot 
help seeing that there is a tendency toward adopting 
an irrevocably hostile system." It was clearly seen by 
the Frenchmen in America that it would be an 
easy task to raise an army of 30,000 skilled riflemen, 
west of the Alleghanies, embark them on boats which 
they were accustomed to handle, and send them, hot 
for a fight, dozvn the river. Napoleon's men, with all 
their European experience, would find a different kind 

391 



A History of the 

of warfare when, after landing in New Orleans, they 
tried to push up the river in boats, or through the road- 
less forests and lowlands on either border. 

To such arguments as this, Napoleon, as a states- 
man, was obliged to give heed. He saw that any 
force that he could send to New Orleans would be 
wholly lost to his uses in Europe, and it would ac- 
complish nothing in America. He saw further that 
the supremacy of the British naval power on the high 
seas would prevent his reinforcing New Orleans, in 
time of war — would even prevent his rescuing the 
garrison there from certain defeat. He believed that 
in case of war with England, Louisiana would become 
a British colony, and a war with England was now 
seen to be at hand. These considerations prevailed. 
It is a proof of the wisdom of Napoleon that they did 
prevail. To his counsellors he said : 

''They [the British], shall not have the Mississippi 
which they covet. The conquest of Louisiana would 
be easy, if they only took the trouble to make a descent 
there. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of 
their reach. * * * I think of ceding it to the United 
States. I can scarcely say that I cede it to them, for 
it is not yet in our possession. If, however, I leave 
the least time to our enemies, I shall only transmit an 
empty title to those republicans whose friendship I 
seek. They only ask of me one town in Louisiana, 
but I already consider the colony as entirely lost, and 
it appears to me that in the hands of their growing 
power, it will be more useful to the' policy and even to 
the commerce of France than if I should attempt to 
keep it." 

392 



Mississippi Valley. 

When objections were urged he continued: 

"Irresokition and deHberation are no longer in 
season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New 
Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony with- 
out any reservation. * * * To attempt obstinately to 
retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate this 
affair with the envoys of the United States." 

And when the matter had been fully determined 
he said: 

'This accession of territory strengthens forever 
the power of the United States, and / have just given 
-to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later 
humble her pride." 

With American capitalists in control of the leading 
lines of transatlantic steamships in this present year 
of 1903, the last statement is of interest. But it is 
worth noting here that one of Napoleon's ideas in this 
matter was by no means well founded. He supposed, 
as he said, that if he tried to occupy the Louisiana 
territory the British would promptly take it away from 
him. Curiously enough nearly all American historians 
have agreed with him. But we will believe that as 
soon as Napoleon's army had sailed for New Orleans, 
the "Prime Riflemen" of the West would have gone 
aboard their flat boats, and in an irresistible tide would 
have swept all foreign power from the Great Valley 
before either French iDr British could have done so 
much as to make a landing. Livingston, who had 
reverence for the eagle, not the porcupine, said : "Only 
force can give us New Orleans. We must employ 
force. Let us first get possession of the country and 
negotiate afterwards." 

393 



A History of the 

He understood the beneficent effect of showing the 
mailed fist at the right time in some kinds of diplo- 
matic proceedings. It was not necessary to do that on 
this occasion, but if the necessity had arisen, it would 
have been done. Let no one think that Great Britain 
would have forestalled Napoleon at New Orleans, even 
if the "timid" Mr. Jefferson was President. 

Barbe Marbois was commanded to conduct the 
negotiations with Livingston and Monroe. He was 
well acquainted personally with both of them, personal 
regard smoothed the way, and the negotiations were 
conducted with unparalleled expedition. Napoleon at 
first demanded a price that seemed enormous, but he 
modified his demands to a point where the conditions 
were written to the satisfaction of both parties. Liv- 
ingston and Monroe felt that they were stretching 
their powers to the utmost in buying the whole terri- 
tory, but there was (fortunately), no time for consul- 
tation with Jefferson, and a treaty, (dated April 30, 
1803, though concluded in part as late as May 9), was 
signed whereby: 

"The First Consul of France, desiring to give to 
the United States a strong proof of his friendship, dotli 
hereby cede to the United States, in the name of the 
French Republic, forever and in full sovereignty the 
said territory" of Louisiana. For this broad territory 
the United States paid $11,250,000 in six per cent, 
bonds, and assumed a debt of $3,750,000 due Amer- 
ican citizens from France, or $15,000,000 all told. 

When Livingston had signed this document, (and 
his name was the first appended to it), he arose, shook 
hands with Marbois and Monroe, and said : 

394 



Mississippi Valley. 

"We have lived long, but this is the noblest work 
of our lives." 

The papers reached Washington on July 14, 1803. 
The treaty attracted the widest attention. No one had 
foreseen such an outcome of the negotiations. A great 
number of the people supposed that the Nation had no 
power under the Constitution to annex foreign terri- 
tory. Others were opposed to the policy of enlarging 
the territory of the Nation. Jefferson himself fully 
believed Congress had no power to annex the purchased 
territory, and favored passing an amendment to the 
Constitution to permit it. He thought, too, that the 
land west of the Mississippi would be useless save as 
a refuge for the Indians then living in the East. Mon- 
roe, fearing that he had paid too much for the cession, 
suggested the sale of "the territory west of the Miss- 
issippi * * * ^Q some power of Europe whose vicin- 
ity we should not fear." 

But when a letter was received from Livingston 
saying that Napoleon might yet undo the work al- 
ready accomplished, and when this was followed by 
another letter saying "I most earnestly press you to 
get the ratification as soon as possible," Jefferson called 
a special session of Congress. He had written to Sen- 
ator Breckenridge "The executive * * * have done 
an act beyond the Constitution," but on the following 
day he wrote to ask that this letter be suppressed, and 
added that "we should do stib silentio what shall be 
found necessary." He would not let his interpretation 
of the Constitution interfere with a good business prop- 
osition. 

Congress met on October 17, 1803, and the an- 

395 



A History of the 

nexation of Louisiana was discussed. On October 25, 
the House resolved, "That provision ought to be made 
for carrying into effect the treaty." The vote stood 
ninety to twenty-five. In the Senate a bill, introduced 
by John Breckenridge, of Kentucky, "to enable the 
President of the United States to take possession of 
the territories ceded by France," was passed on Wed- 
nesday, October 26; yeas, twenty-six; nays, six. This 
bill was approved October 31, 1803, (annals of Con- 
gress, i8o3-'o4). 

Foster's "Century of American Diplomacy" sum- 
marizes the arguments against admission as follows : 

"The boundaries were in dispute and it would prob- 
ably lead to war — a prediction that was realized some 
forty years later; the large territory was useless and 
not wanted; the price was too high — it was equal to 
433 tons of silver, it would load 866 wagons, extend- 
ing 51-3 miles, would make a pile of dollars three 
miles high, equal to 25 ship loads, would provide $3 
to each man, woman and child in the country." 

Such a vast, unmanageable extent of territory 
threatened the subversion of the Union, said the leader 
of the Federalists. 

It may be noted, however, that an argument which 
was urged against the annexation of the Philippines, 
in recent years, was not heard in 1803. No one arose 
to say that the native population of the new territory 
was sure to flood the old, and by competition cut down 
the wages of the poor working man. 

To go back a little and take up the thread of events 
in the Mississippi Valley, it is found that the formal 
work of transferring Louisiana from Spain to France 

396 




THOMAS B. ROBERTSON. 



First Congressman elected from the State of Louisiana, afterward 
Governor. This portrait is by St. JNIemim. 



Mississippi Valley. 

had been begun before the territory had been sold to 
the United States. Pierre Clement Laussat, (a man 
who "could swim well in rough water," he), was sent 
by Napoleon to New Orleans as civil Governor, and he 
arrived on March 26, 1803. He knew nothing about 
the negotiations for a sale to the United States, and 
his proclamation to the people of the region filled them 
with "a delirium of extreme felicity," as they said. 
Some weeks later came the Marquis de Casa Calvo to 
represent the Spanish King in the transfer. A pro-- 
longed series of public entertainments followed, re- 
garding which Laussat made this significant remark : 

"The tendency of these festivities was, no doubt, 
to spread the taste for pleasure and luxury in a colony 
which being in its nascent state, still needs a great deal 
of economy and labor." 

Laussat saw dimly why both France and Spain had 
failed in colonizing the Great Valley. 

While the happy-go-lucky Creoles danced, a ship 
came from Bordeaux with the news that the territory 
had been sold to the Americans. It was first to be 
transferred to France, however, and this was done on 
November 30. As Miss King says in her New Or- 
leans, an "elaborate but uninteresting formality took 
place." French municipal officers were appointed, and 
a Creole took command of the militia. 

Li the meantime the preparations for annexing the 
territory had been completed in the United States. 
Because Spain had protested against the transfer to 
the United States, (Napoleon had agreed not to sell 
without Spain's consent), a large body of militia was 
ordered out along the upper rivers, and flat boats for 

397 



A History of the 

their use were provided. A force 500 strong was sent 
to Natchez. W. C. C. Claiborne, then Governor of 
Mississippi, and General James Wilkinson, the head 
of the regular army, were appointed commissioners to 
receive the Territory at New Orleans. Each of these 
two men are still well remembered — Claiborne for the 
skill with which he managed the people of New Or- 
leans; Wilkinson as one of the most detestable of trait- 
ors. The commissioners met at Fort Adams, below 
Natchez, and on December 7, with a sufficient escort 
of soldiers, began their march to New Orleans. The 
schooner Bilboa, (chartered for $1,854.18, if any one 
is anxious for details), floated down the river carrying 
the baggage. On December 17 the party camped two 
miles from the city, and two days were then passed in 
formal visits, and in agreeing on the details of the 
coming ceremonies. 

December 20 was the day selected for the transfer. 
As the people of the city of New Orleans awoke on 
that morning, it was noted as a good omen that "in- 
stead of the rain and clouds that had attended the 
Spanish ceremonies, the day dawned clear and bright." 
At sunrise the French tricolor was spread to the gentle 
breeze at the top of the tall flag pole that stood in the 
centre of the Place d'Armes, while the ships at the 
levee, and at anchor in the stream, were decorated with 
a great spread of bright bunting. At 9 o'clock the 
militia began to muster, and at 11 o'clock they 
marched, with beating drums, into the Place d'Armes. 
A notable throng gathered about them, and along the 
street by which the Americans were to come — a throng 
that included the gentry in their colored silks and 

398 



Mississippi Valley. 

velvets, and slaves in osnaburgs; pirates in sea "togs" 
from the West Indies, and tall, lank backwoodsmen 
in fringed leather hunting, or red flannel shirts — men 
of every nation, and men without a country. But 
gathered at the foot of the flag pole was a band of fifty 
old French soldiers who, on November 30, had been 
organized as a guard for the tricolor flag. 

Soon after the local militia had been paraded in 
line facing the flag pole a gun was fired at the Amer- 
ican camp to announce that the American forces had 
started for the city. In due time they reached the 
Tchoupitoulas gate, where they received a salute of 
twenty-one guns. Then they marched into the city. 

At the head of the column rode the commissioners. 
They were followed by "a detachment of dragoons in 
red uniform, four pieces of artillery, two companies of 
infantry and one of carbineers." Marching to the cen- 
tre of the Place d'Armes the column was paraded to 
face the local militia. Then the commissioners dis- 
mounted and walked to the Cabildo, or City Hall, 
where they were received by Laussat, who, with the 
officers of the municipality, conducted them to the 
great hall of the building. They found there the most 
notable citizens of the city. At the head of the hall 
stood three elevated chairs. In the centre and most 
elevated of these three Laussat sat down, and placed 
Claiborne on his right and Wilkinson on his left. The 
reading of the various commissions, the treaty of ces- 
sion, etc., followed, and then Taussat gave the keys of 
the city to Claiborne, and changed seats with him. 
The citizens who wished to remain in the country 
were next absolved from their allegiance to France. 

399 



A History of the 

Finally Laussat, Claiborne and Wilkinson walked 
out on a balcony where they could look over the motley 
throng that had gathered in the Place d'Armes, and 
away to the decorated shipping in the harbor. The 
supreme moment of the transfer had now come. As 
the commissioners appeared on the balcony the sergeant 
of the old French guard loosened the halliards and be- 
gan to lower the tricolor. At the same instant an 
American soldier commenced hoisting the Gridiron 
Flag. Midway the two flags met, and as they fluttered 
together for a moment, a single gun was fired. And 
then, as the two flags were separated, every gun in 
the city began to fire a national salute; the guns on 
the shipping joined in; a brass band played "Hail 
Columbia," while the backwoodsmen and the keelboat- 
men in their fringed and red flannel shirts, cheered 
with frantic joy, and leaping up, slapped their hands 
on their sides and crowed until they were hoarse. But 
the gentry, in colored satins and laces, wept. 

At the end of August, 1656, those enterprising 
and courageous Frenchmen — the courciirs de hois, 
known as Grosseilliers and Radisson — men who would 
and did work according to the powers given them, re- 
turned to Montreal and reported that they had been 
on the waters of the Great River. And "their arrival 
caused the country universal joy." 

On April 9, 1682, La Salle, the greatest of all the 
French-Americans, a man who worked as few of any 
nation have done, standing on a sand bar at the mouth 
of the Great River, proclaimed the sovereignty of his 
King over all the wondrous unknown valley whose 
waters flowed at his feet. 

400 



Mississippi Valley. 

For 121 years thereafter the flags of foreign na- 
tions waved above the evergreen slopes that had glad- 
dened the hearts of those men of deeds. But because 
a new race had been originated on the American con- 
tinent — a race of whom it could be said "The thing 
that is given it to do it can make itself do" — the period 
of foreign control was limited. With a "blinkard daz- 
zlement and staggerings to and fro" as "of a man sent 
on an errand he is too weak for by a path he cannot yet 
find," this race had reached out and grasped the mighty 
Valley from brim to brim. 

THE END. 




401 



INDEX. 



Abenakis Indians, driven from 
New England, join La Salle, 
40; persuaded to make war, 
121. 

Abercrombie defeated, 151. 

Accau, Michael, heads an ex- 
ploring expedition, 37. 

Adams, John, at peace treaty. 
332. 

Albany, N. Y., Dutch at, 33-34. 

Alibamons Indians, in Alaba- 
ma, 62. 

Alleghanies crossed by British 
settlers, 124; Duquesne forti- 
fies, 133. 

Alleghany region, French move 
into, 128. 

Alleghany Co., N. Y., and river 
shed visited, 8. 

AUouez, Father, estab. Mission 
at La Pointe, 8. 

Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, captures 
Louisburg, 151; in Pontiac's 
War, 175. 

Animals of Miss. Valley, 18, 22; 
Beavers in, 24; abundant, 189. 

Armies, American, efficiency, 252. 

Aubry, succeeds D'Abbadie, 163; 
permits British trade in New 
Orleans, 167. 

Au Glaize river named, 349. 

Badine, Iberville's ship, 53. 

Baker, John, 198. 

Baker, Joshua, attack on Indi- 
ans, 215. 

Bank, Louis ("Bar"), meets 
French at English Turn, 57. 

Barlow, Joel, speculator, 337. 

Barre, La antagonizes La Salle, 
45. 

Baton Rouge, British take pos- 
session of, 205; named, 55. 

Bean, William, on B o o n e* s 
Creek, 200. 

Battle Island, Ohio, named, 305. 

Bayou Manchac, named, 55; 
British at. 288. 

Bears as domestic cattle, 79. 

Beaubassion, Sieur de, leads 
raid, 121. 

Beaujeu, Capt. Daniel Lienard 
de, attacks Braddock, 144. 

Beavers. 120; eaten in feast, 5. 

Bernadotte, General Charles, to 
take Miss. Valley, 388. 

Berthier, Alexander, gets Lou- 
isiana and Florida for Napol- 
eon^ 384. 



Big Bottom, Pa., attacked, 339. 

Big Lick, site of Boonesborough, 
227. 

Bienville, "Father of New Or- 
leans," 52; buys a letter of 
Indian, 55; meets English, 58; 
meets Tonti, 59; time in the 
Louisiana colony, 60; as to ri- 
valries, 61; Vente opposes, 62; 
opposes a marriage, 62; sends 
soldiers among Indians for 
food, 63; plans new fort, 72; 
founds New Orleans, 74; sends 
surveyors to lay out new cap- 
ital, 104; opposed, 106; builds 
first levee, 106; leaves country, 
115; describes soldiers, 116. 

Bigot, Francois, character of 
Intendant, 134; loves Madam 
Pean, 154. 

Biloxi, Miss., settled, 56; Sioux 
Indians at, 79. 

Bilboa, ship, carries commis- 
sioners, 398. 

Bird, Colonel, builds fort, 150. 

Bird, Capt. Henry, raids, 289. 

Bishop of New Orleans com- 
plains of tolerance to Protes- 
tants, 382. 

Bledsoe. Anthony, surveys Va. 
line, 202. 

Blount, William, Governor of 
Tennessee, etc., 363. 

Blue Earth River, named, 60. 

Blue Licks, Ky., Battle at, 310. 

Boisbriant, Major Pierre Hugue, 
falls in love, 62; builds Fort 
Chartres, 107. 

Bonaparte, Lucien, m a k e 9 
treaty, 385. 

Boone, Daniel, with Braddock, 
147; ancestry and early life, 196; 
story of, 197; crosses mountain 
wall, 198; Squire joins Daniel, 
199; typical explorer, 200; warns 
of coming war, 212; in Tran- 
sylvania. 225; fights Indians. 
226; brings wife to Boones- 
borough, 240; prepares game 
and horse laws. 244: daughter 
Jemima carried off. 259: at 
Blue Licks, 264. 310; sees chief 
need of the country, 327: cross- 
es the Mississippi, 381; ap- 
pointed to office, 382. 

Boone, Squire, brother of Dan- 
iel, in Kentucky, 199. 



403 



Index. 



Boonesborough, Kentucky, 227; 
first woman at, 240; attacked, 
264. 

Boston Port closed, 248. 

Bouquet, Col. Henry, commands 
Colonials, 177; wins Bushy Run 
fight, 179; forces peace, 181. 

Bowman, John, first Kentucky 
Colonel, 259. 

Braddock, Edward, sails for 
America, 142; attacked by 
French, 144; shot, 145; dies, 147. 

Brady, Samuel, borderer, 328. 

Bradstreet, Lieut. Col. John, 
takes Fort Frontenac. 151; 
General, sent against Indians, 
181. 

Brant, Joseph, 334; tells of 
British duplicity, 341. 

Brazos river, Nolan on, 381. 

Breckenridge, Senator John, 395; 
Introduces bill to authorize 
Louisiana treaty, 396. 

Bryan's Station, attack on, 308. 

British, civilization of, 250, et 
seq.; urge attack on Christian 
Indians, 295; welchers after the 
Rev., 333; object in Northwest, 
334; urge Indians to war, 334; 
against peace, 341; idea of 
Wayne's work, 345; attitude 
toward U. S., 345; betray 
Indians, 351; impressed by good 
fighting, 352; plan to raid Mis- 
sissippi Valley, 367; get a rival 
from Napoleon, 393. 

Brule, Etienne, First Coureur 
de Bois, 1; at Lake copper 
mines, 3; fate, 3. 

Bryan, Rebecca, Boone's wife, 
197. 

Buffalo, wild cattle, 18; heard 
by Joliet, 22; 30,000 skins wast- 
ed, 63. 

Bullies of the Miss. Valley, 377. 

Bullitt, Capt. Thomas, survey- 
or in Ohio Valley, 207. 

Burgoyne's surrender, to whom 
credit is due, 268. 

Burnet, Gov. Wm., founds Os- 
wego, 122. 

Bushy Run, Penn., battle at, 
178. 

Butler. General Richard, robbed 
by desperadoes, 211; killed at 
St. Clair's defeat, 340. 

Butler, trader, canoes attacked, 
213. 

Cabins, log, how built, 228. 

Cadillac, Le Mothe, Gov. of De- 
troit & Louisiana, 64; com- 
plains of profligates, 66; tries 
to promote trade, 67; sends 
out expeditions, 68; views on 
trade. Infiian policy and col- 
ony, 69; dismissed, 69. 



Cahokia, (Kaoquias) 110; con- 
quered, 272. 

Cairo, trading station near, 63. 

Caldwell, Capt. William, 305; 
attacks Bryan's Station, 308; 
at Fallen Timbers, 350. 

Calk, Journal of, 230. 

Calloway, Betsey & Fanny, 
captured, 260. 

Calumet, peace pipe given to 
Joliet, 19; brings peace, 22- 
23; Indians accept Quakers', 
153. 

Calvo, Marquis de Casa, repre- 
sents Spanish at New Orleans 
transfer, 397. 

Campbell, Colonel Archibald, 
takes Savannah, 313. 
Campbell, Col. William, at 
Kings Mountain, 316; hangs 
a Tory, 328. 

Campbell, Major, commands a 
British fort on Maumee, 352. 

Cameron with raiders, 255. 

Canadians, in the South, 60; 
fought Braddock, 144, 148. 

Canoes and dugouts described, 
5, 22, 30. 

Carheil, Father Etienne de, de- 
scribes missions, 116. 

Carmichael, in Spain, 373. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, see Lord 
Dorchester. 

Carondelet, Baron de, com- 
mands at New Orleans, starts 
Indian raids, 371; opposes El- 
licott, 375; transferred, 376. 

Catholic Church protected, 272; 
Children must join, 382. 

Cat Island, named, 54; mutiny 
on, 116. 

Cataraqui, (Kingston, Canada). 
27; settlement grows at, 30. 

Caughnowagas, 121. 

Celoron, (Monsieur de Bienville) 
takes possession of Ohio Val- 
ley, buries plates, etc., 128; 
meets Old Britain, Indian 
chief, 129. 

Champlain, Samuel de, sends 
Brule to the Indians, 2; work 
in America, 2; influence of his 
gun over-rated. 28. 

Champlain, Lake, discovered, 
fight, etc., 2. 

Charleston, W. Va., laid out, 207. 

Chesne, Monsieur de, order for 
service among Hurons, 51. 

Chicago River. La Salle's work 
on, 43; portage to Fox River. 
111. 

Chickasaws and English threat- 
en French, 57j hunted by Choc- 
taws, 62; see Indian summary, 
•76 et seq. 



404 



Index. 



Chickasaw Bluff, La Salle at, 
44; Gayoso fortifies, 373; Elli- 
cott stopped at, 375; Spanish, 
377. 

Chillicothe, Ohio, raided by 
Clarlt, 290. 

China, search for, 4-9. 

Chine, La, rapids, described, 8, 
9; origin of name, 10, 11; when 
Celoron left, 128. 

Choctaw Indians encouraged to 
hunt other tribes, 62. 

Choteau, August & Pierre, sons 
of Laclede, 162. 

Christina, Indian woman, begs 
for life, 301. 

Cincinnati, Ohio, named, 339. 

Civil Govt. West of AUeghanies, 
202, 244. 

Claiborne, "W. C. C, American 
Governor of Miss., 398. 

Claims, land entry, made with 
tomahawk, 204; cost of, 245; 
at Marietta, 338; French and 
British opposing, 124. 

Clark, George Rogers, his work, 
196; at Wheeling, 213; with 
Cresap, 214; carries petition, 
258; kills Indian, 262; sends 
spies to Illinois, 263; method 
of defending Kentucky, 265; 
Illinois campaign, 267, et seq. ; 
skill in handling French and 
Indians, 270, et. seq.; Vin- 
cennes taken, 274; when the 
British came to the Wabash, 
275, et seq. ; builds gun boat, 
277; retakes Vincennes, 281; 
returns to Falls of Ohio, 284; 
ill-treatment of, 285; value of 
work, 332, 353; contemplates 
raid on Natchez, 364; to aid 
French schemes, 371. 

Clerc, Leo (brother-in-law of 
Napoleon), in San Domingo, 
384. 

Clothing, frontier, 238, 241; Amer- 
ican and French compared, 
241-242. 

Cocquard, Father Godfrey, de- 
scribes French-Indian raids, 
148. 

Comet, La Salle's view of, com- 
pared with Mather's, 40. 

Congress at Albany, 141; at Al- 
exandria, 142. 

Congress, U. S. and Indians 
and Pirates, 341; accepts lands 
from States, 363; ratifies pur- 
chase of Louisiana Ter., 395- 
396. 

Connelly, Dr. John, makes trou- 
ble at Pittsburg, 211; tries to 
imprison friendly Indians, 217; 
back to Kentucky, 367. 

Constitution, United States, 
adopted, 362. 



Contractors, vile thieves, 343. 

Contrecoeur, Capt. Claude Pe- 
caudy de, takes a fort, 138; 
commands at Ft. Duquesne, 
143; succeeded by Dumas, 148. 

Convicts in colonies, 104. 

Cooley, William, explores Ken- 
tucky, 198. 

Copper, found by Etienne 
Brule, 3; search for, 10, 14; 
Indian use of, 80. 

Corn as a diet, 60, 61; food of 
the Indians, 79; on frontier, 
242; price in Hard Winter, 321. 

Cornstalk attacks Virginians, 
218; at the peace treaty, 221; 
favors Americans, 266; mur- 
dered, 266. 

Cornwallis, Lord, whips Gates, 
314; surrenders, 329. 

Cotton, profitable, 380; cotton- 
gin, 380. 

Coureurs de bois, first, 1; de- 
scribed, 3, 33, 34, 68; some en- 
terprising, HI. 

Cowan, John, first house at 
i-,ouisville, 207. 

Crawford, Col. William, re-« 
ceives ammunition, ;;8S; in raid 
on Sandusky towns, 304; tor- 
tured by Indians, 306. 

Creoles, described, 169; migra- 
tion, 169; and French Repub- 
lic, 170; untimely dancing of, 
397. 

Cresap, Michael, needless 
slaughters of Indians, 213; in 
Revolution, 248. 

Cresap, Col. Thomas, on Poto- 
mac, 123; employed by Ohio 
company, 190. 

Crevecoeur, Fort, 236. 

Crozat, Anthony, controls Lou- 
isiana, 64; loses money, 68; 
surrenders Louisiana to King, 
70. 

Croghan, George, sent to Indi- 
ans, 191; warns against attack 
on Indians, 212; foils Connel- 
ly. 217. 

Cumberland, Duke of, 124, 191. 

Cumberland River & Gap 
named, 124. 

Cumberland, Md., trail from, 124. 

Cutbirth, Benjamin, 198. 

Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, secures 
land grant from Congress, 336, 
337. 

D'Abbadie, M., sent to New 
Orleans. 163; permits British 
trade in New Orleans, 167. 

Dablon, Father Claude, tells of 
Joliet, 15. 

Daring, frigate, whipped by 
d'Iberville, 52. 



405 



hid ex. 



Dartmouth, ship, (tea party), 
248. 

Dauphine Island, named, 54; 
settled, 60. 

Deekhard rifle, 237; used at 
King's Mountain, 315; Deck- 
hard rifle government, 203. 

Delassus, Don Charles D., ap- 
points Boone to office, 382. 

De Ligneris, leaves Duquesne, 
154. 

Denis, Juchereau de St., expe- 
ditions to Mexico, 67, 68. 

De Noyant, arrested, 165. 

Denton, Mrs., one of the first 
white women in Kentucky, 
240. 

De Soto, see chapter ix. 

Desperadoes, 211. 

D-s Plaines River, La Salle on, 
11. 

Detroit, Mich., Clark plans to 
take, 284. 

Dieskau, Baron, in command of 
Canada, 142. 

Dinwiddle, Gov. Robert, pro- 
tests to French, 135; King or- 
ders him to make war on the 
French, 137; sends troops to 
Redstone creek, 138. 

Diplomacy, early Indian, 4. 

Doak, Rev. Samuel, and his 
books, 319; labors successful, 
362. 

Doddridge's Notes, 232; opinion 
of Williamson, 299. 

Donelson, Col. John, goes to 
site of Nashville, 290. 

Dorchester, Lord, (formerly Sir 
Guy Carleton) letter to, 334; 
misrepresentations by, 336; 
speaks to the Indians, 346; re- 
sponsible for Indian suffer- 
ings, 349, 

Douay. Father Anastose, pres- 
ent at death of La Salle, 48, 
49. 

Douville's troops gave no quar- 
ter, 149. 

Dragging Canoe, attacks whites, 
256; refuses peace, 258. 

Dubreuil, A. M., erects sugar 
mill, 168. 

Duclos, commissary, describes 
women of Louisiana, 66; dis- 
missed, 69. 

Duer, Col. William, speculator, 
337. 

Dug-out, a Sioux boat, 5. 

Du Gay, assistant of Accau, 37. 

Dumas, Captain, succeeds Con- 
trecoeur, 148; gives written 
orders to prevent torture, 149; 
like Col. Hamilton, 255. 

Dunlap Station, Ky^, attacked, 
339. yjJL..' 



406 



Dunmore. Lord, in Indian War, 
218; makes peace, 221; pro- 
claims in vain, 243. 

Dunmore's War, 209, et se€[.; 
action of soldiers at end of, 
247. 

Duquesne, Marquis de Menne- 
ville, approves attack on Old 
Britain, 132; to keep British 
east of Alleghanies, 133. 

Duquesne, Fort, prisoners burn- 
ed at, 146; evacuated, 171. 

Dutch, give guns and ideas to 
Indians, 100. 

Eaton's Station, garrison at- 
tacks Indians, 256. 

Ecuyer, Captain, deceives In- 
dians, 176. 

Ellicott, Andrew, American 
Commissioner to survey line 
between United States and 
Spanish Florida, 375. 

Ellinipsico, killed, 266. 

Elliott, Matthew, Renegade, 305. 

English top the Alleghanies. 57, 
75; claim the West, 76; cross 
the Alleghanies, 124; com- 
pared with French, 124; rights 
in the Mississippi Valley, 125- 
126; gain Canada, 155; horri- 
fied by sight of Yorkshire 
habit of gouging out eyes, 327. 

English Turn in Mississippi 
River, named, 58. 

Erie, Penn., (Presqu' Isle), 
French reach, 134. 

Espiritu Santu, a name of Mis- 
sissippi River, 161. 

Fallen Timbers, battle of, 350 
et seq. 

Fawcett, Thomas, kills Brad- 
dock, 145. 

Feast of 120 beavers, 5; Immac- 
ulate Conception, 16; Fron- 
tier. 242. 

Federalists and War, 390. 

Femme Osage district, Missou- 
ri, 382. 

Ferguson, Major Patrick, finds 
Patriots, 314; fights at King's 
Mountain, 315, 317. 

Fillibustering, threatened, 364, 
371; done. 381. 

Filson, John, map, 228; with 
Symmes and Boone, 338. 

Finley, John, tells Boone sto- 
ries. 197; with Boone, 198. 

Florida. De Soto lands in. 158; 
British in West, 167, 288; Span- 
ish gain, 289; French gain, 3S4. 

Floyd, John, Kentucky Colonel, 
325. 

Food, frontier, 242; cost of, 324. 

Forbes, Gen. John, starts for 
Ft. Duquesne, 152; enters, 154. 



Index. 



Forts. Adams, 398; Bute, built, 
206; British on Maumee, (Mi- 
ami), 347; Chartres, 107; 
French at Chartres, 154; Char- 
tres surrendered, 207; chain 
of built, 151; Defiance. 349; Du- 
quesne, built, 134, 138; Fred- 
erfck, at Crown Point, 122; 
Frontenac, built, 30; the same 
pledged for debt, 31; seized, 
33; captured by British, 151; 
Indian at Marietta, 85; Grand- 
ville, 150; Great Meadows, 139; 
La Boulaye, 159; La Boeuf, 
13.; Massac, 269, 272; Miami, 
built by La Salle, 36; Mata- 
gorda Bay, 46; same raided, 
49; Natchitoches. 68-69; Ne- 
cessity, 140; New Orleans, 
first built, 72. 74; Oswego, 122; 
Pitt, besieged, 175; Redstone, 
138; St. Louis, 45; Starved 
Rock, 45; Venango, 135; Wash- 
ington, 340; Wayne, 352. See 
chapter on La Salle. 

Fox River, Nicolet up, 5; De- 
scription of country at head, 
17; Portage at. 111. 

Frankfort, Ky., founded, 208. 

Franklin, state set up, 362. 

Franklin, Ben., leaves England, 
250; makes peace treaty, 331, 
et seq.; his regard for the Mis- 
sissippi, 358. 

French-Indian war, first gun, 
132. 

French spoliations, 383-384. 

French, (see chapters vi, vil, 
viii,) treaties with Indians, 2, 
4, 5; compared with other Na- 
tions, 6, 7, 11 ; peace with Ir- 
oquois, 28; jealousy of English, 
53; dislike of Americans, 270. 

French Government, attitude 
toward U. S., 332. 351; plans 
to take New Orleans from 
Spanish, 371; buys Louisiana, 
383, 384; warned by Jefferson, 
386; sell Louisiana to U. S., 
394. 

Friendship, frontier test of, 290. 

Frontenac, Monsieur de, Gov. 
Canada, sends Joliet to Mis- 
sissippi, 15; described, 26; rec- 
ognizes La Salle's worth, 26; 
leaves Montreal to dazzle Iro- 
quois, 27; sends La Salle to 
France, 28; hates Jesuits, 29; 
coat of arms, 32; recalled, 45. 

Frontier life, 107, 108. 

Fry, Joshua, made Colonel. 137; 
sent to Logstown, 191; death, 
140. 

Furniture frontier. 232. 

Galena. 111., founded. 108. 

Galvez, Don Bernado de. Gov. 
of Louisiana, 287; confiscates 



British ships, 287; loans U. S. 
16,000,288; captures Natchez, 289, 
359, 369; Miro succeeds, 363. 

Game laws, 244. 

Gardoqui, Don Diego, Spanish 
treaty made by, 364; his bri- 
bery, 365; plans to draw off 
American settlers, 367; re- 
turns to Spain, 369. 

Gates, Gen. Horatio, defeated, 
314; Wilkinson, his aide, 360. 

Gayarre, Charles, historian, on 
burning of Indians, 114. 

Gayoso, (Manuel Gayoso de 
Lemos), and Wilkinson, 365; 
Commandant at Chicksaw 
Bluffs, 373; wearisome dilly- 
ing-dallying, 375; dies after 
spree, 389. 

Genet, "Citizen," Edmund 
Charles, comes to U. S., 371. 

Georgia, movement to control 
Miss. Valley begun, 370; sells 
land (Yazoo fraud), 373. 

Georgian Bay visited by Nico- 
let, 4; La Salle en route to, 
43. 

Germain, Lord, approved In- 
dian raids, 289. 

German Coast of Miss. River, 
104. 

Germans in Miss. Valley, 104. 

Gibault, Father Pierre, begs 
Clark for life, 271; helps Amer- 
icans secure Vincennes, 272. 

Gibson, Col., John, interpreter,. 
222; tries to protect Gnaden- 
hutten Indians, 277, 279. 

Girty, Simon, and Moravians, 
298; at Crawford's raid, 305; at- 
tacks Dunlap station, 339. 

Gist, Christopher, with Wash- 
ington, 136, 139; employed by 
Ohio Company, 190; treats with 
Indians, 191. 

Gnadenhutten, Ohio, 89; Indi- 
ans at, 188; building of, 216; 
the story of. 293; et seq.; ef- 
fect on Indians. 308-311; effect 
of, 329. 

Gomer, Nancy, heroine. 291. 

Gordon, Lieut., captured and 
killed, 175. 

Government, frontier, 244; at 
Watauga, 201; at Nashbor- 
ough, 291. 

Grant, Major James, defeated, 
153. 

Grave Creek, W. Va., attack 
on Indians at, 214. 

Gravier. Father, at Kaskaskia. 
75: manner of curing disease, 
115. 

Gray soldier, escapes, 175. 

Greathouse. Daniel C, leads 
attnck. on Indians at Yellow 
creek, 215. 



407 



Index. 



Green Bay, Mich., Nicolet at, 
5; mentioned, 111. 

Greenville, Ohio, named, 345. 

Gridiron Flag co/ers the Na- 
tion. 378. 

Griffin, first ship on Lake Erie, 
32; sails on Lakvis, 35: lost, 
37-38. 

Grosseilliers, Menard Chouart 
des, goes with Radisson, into 
region S. & W. of Lake Su- 
perior, 5; described, 5, 6, 7; 
into the Miss. Valley, 7; final 
word of, 400. 

Guion, Captain Isaac, sent to 
Miss. Valley, 377. 

Gulf of Mexico, La Salle reach- 
es, 44. 

Half King, speaks to Gnaden- 
hutten Indians, 297. 

Hamilton, Col. Henry, instruc- 
tions to, 251; sends raiders, 
253; captured, 254; incites In- 
dians, 259; tries to ransom 
Boone, 264; goes hunting 
Clark, 275; takes Vincennes, 
275; Clark sends him to Vir- 
ginia, 281. 

Hammond, British Ambassador, 
describes Wayne, 342; justifies 
British aggression, 348. 

Hampshire, ship sunk by Iber- 
ville, 52, 53. 

"Hard Winter," described, 320, 
mentioned, 290. 

Harmer, Gen. Josiah, raids In- 
dians, 335. 

Harpe, Bernard de la, builds 
Fort St. Louis de Carlorette, 
69. 

Harrison, Benjamin, at battle 
of Point Pleasant, 221. 

Harrod, James, founds Harrods- 
burg, 208. 

Harrodsburg, Ky., become^ 
county seat, 259; under fire all 
summer, 261; force at, 263, 264; 
land office closed by Clark, 
290; first court at, 325. 

Heckweldeir, John, Moravian 
Missionary, 216. 

Helm, Capt. Leonard, at Vin- 
cennes, 275; bluffs Col. Hamil- 
ton, 276; joke on, by George 
Rogers Clark, 281. 

Henderson, Col. Richard, Boone 
works for, 200; founds Tran- 
sylvania Co., 225; cause of 
failure, 245. 

Henderson, Ky., named for Col. 
Henderson, 245. 

Hennepin, La Salle's Chaplain, 
and historian of expedition 
to Miss. River. 33; tries to 
bribe St. Anthony, 33. 

Henry, Patrick, call to arms, 
248; approves Clark's expedi- 



408 



tion to Illinois, 268. 

Hickman metts Indians, 219. 

Hill, William, with Boone, 198. 

Hillsborough, Lord, explains 
King's proclamation regarding 
Indian land, 186. 

Hogan, Mrs., comes to Boones- 
borough, 240. 

Homeseekers, fearless of dan- 
ger, 264. 

House boat, first known on 
Miss., 167. 

House boatmen, first in Miss. 
Valley 205. 

Hudson's Bay, (ship), captured 
by Iberville, 53. 

Huron Indians, guides of Nico- 
let, 4; around Georgian Bay, 
5; on Miss. River, 7. 

Iberville, Le Moyne de. Offers 
to plant colony in Louisiana, 
52; captures British ships in 
Hudson's Bay, 52; sails from 
Brest, 53; into Miss. River, 54; 
names lakes, 55; meets "Ton- 
ti, 59; moves colony to Mo- 
bile Bay, 60; builds Miss, fort, 
72. 

Ignace, St.. (Village in Michi- 
gan), mission, Joliet at, 16. 

Illinois Indians, La Salle's peace 
with, 36. 

Illinois, (state) first land war- 
rant in. 108; grain from, 110; 
early settlements, 110. 

Illinois river, route of Joliet's 
return, 23, 24. 

Independence, first idea of in 
U. S., 165; and Watauga 
Govt., 203. 

Indians, (see chapter v.), trea- 
ty with Nicolet, 4; hostile to 
Joliet, 22; Fox implacably 
against the French, 111; in- 
ternal dissensions, 131; can- 
nibals, 148. 149; relative losses 
in wars with whites, 180; how 
wronged by whites, 187, 188; 
British and, 250; character 
shown in dealing with George 
Rogers Clark. 272, 273; most 
significant statement made in 
connection with, 295; faith of, 
298; smallpox spread among, 
291. 

Indigo in Louisiana, 167, 168. 

Innes, Judge Henry, a traitor, 
366. 

Iroquois, raids, 6; check com- 
merce of French, 6; Fronten- 
ac and, 27; enmity toward 
French, 28; sent by Jesuits to 
destroy fort. 39; see Indian 
summary, 79, et seq. ; losing 
grip, 131. 

Iroquet, Indian Chief, treats 
with Champlain, 2. 



Index. 



Jackson, Andrew, backwoods 
hero, dances, 236; his wife 
Rachael, 290; member of Ten- 
nessee Convention, 363. 

Jaudenes, Spanish Minister, 373. 

Jay, John, peace treaty, 332; 
sent to make treaty, 353; to 
Spain, 358; in Spain, 372. 

Jefferson, Tliomas, approves 
Clark's plans, 269; favors war 
then bribery, 339; on policy of 
Bribery, 341; instructions to 
Spanish, Miss, affairs, 373; 
tells of Randolph's slaves, 
3S0; porcupine policy, 385; our 
greatest politician, 385; warns 
France, 386; insincere, 387; In 
regard to Spanish aggression, 
289, 290; his uppermost thought, 
390. 

Jesuits, quarrel with Fronten- 
ac, 29, 30; send Iroauois to de- 
stroy La Salle's fort, 39; in 
New Orleans, 106. 

Johnson, Capt. George, to take 
possession of territory east of 
the Mississippi, 205. 

Johnson, Sir "William, treaty 
with Indians, 182. 

Johnson, Sir John, letter to Jo- 
seph Brant, 334. 

Joliet, Louis, sent to explore 
Miss. River, 14; Father Mar- 
quette was chaplain of the 
expedition, 15, 16; among Il- 
linois Indians, 18, 19;' turnd 
toward home, 23; route home, 
24; loses papers, 24. 

Joncaire, at post on Niagara 
River, 122; receives Washing- 
ton, 136. 

Jones, John Paul, writes Rank, 
322; as a fighter, 324. 

Joutel tells of La Salle, 48. 

Juchereau, a trader, at Cairo, 
111., 63. 

Jumonville, Ensign Coulon de, 
fought by Washington, 139. 

Justice, frontier, 202; to inferi- 
or race, 311; Deckhard-rifle 
kind, 356. 

Kankakee River, La Salle at, 
11. 

Kaskaskia, 111., established, 69; 
becomes parish. 108; college ac, 
108; Clark reaches, 270, 271. 

Kentucky. first cargo from 
down Miss.. 198; "dark and 
bloody ground," 204; settlerg 
described, 207; early homes in 
described, 230; organizing set- 
tlers. 258; raided, 264; suffers 
at Blue Licks, 311; first Court 
House and Jail, 325; loyalty, 
371; Spanish in. 373; popula- 
tion, (1790-1800). 380; Kentucky 
River settled, 208; first women 



in, 240; first legislature in, 
244; sporting blood, 2M; first 
race course, 244; early life in, 
245; cause of rapid growth, 
250: divided into three coun- 
ties, 325; progress in, 325; 
raids after the war, 325; re- 
inforces Wayne, 349; restless- 
ness in, 356; to make a Govt., 
359; Kentucky joins the Union, 
361; history of, doleful read- 
ing, 367. 

King's Mountain fight, 311; et 
seq. 

Kingston, Canada, then Catara- 
qui, 27; a trading station, 27, 
29; traffic of lakes begins at, 
30; vessels at, 30; value to La 
Salle, 30; base of war, 30. 

Knight, Dr. John, on Craw- 
ford's raid, 304; captured, 
306; escapes, 307. 

L'Anse de la Graisse, Missouri, 
111. 

La Beuf, Pa., attack on, 175. 

Laclede, Pierre Liqueste, founds 
St. Louis, 162. 

Lafayette, Ind., site of. 111. 

La Freniere, of New Orleans, 
arrested, 165; executed, 166. 

Langlade, Charles, leads attack 
on Old Britains Indians, 132. 

La Mott, La Salle's assistant, 
fort builder, 31. 

La Salle. Rene Robert Cavalier, 
Sieur de, origin, 8; establish- 
es frontier trading station, 8; 
hears about the Great River, 
9; fails to find China, 10; into 
Great Valley, via lake Michi- 
gan, 11; Frontenac befriends, 
26, 27; other traders hate, 30; 
builds fort at Niagara, 31; 
voyage on upper lakes, 32; et 
seq.; origin of troubles with 
coureurs de bois, 35; builds 
fort Crevecoeur, 36; sends 
Hennepin to Miss. River, 37; 
loss of ship Griffin, 38; enmity 
of Jesuits, 39; not afraid of a 
comet, 40; tells of profits in 
Indian trade, 41; down the 
Miss. River, 43; claims the 
Great Valley for France, 44; 
expedition to Gulf of Mexico, 
45, et seq.; in Texas, 46, et seq.; 
murdered. 49. 

Laussatt. Pierre Clement, civil 
governor at New Orleans. 397. 

Law, John, takes hold of Louis- 
iana, 70; described, 70: floats 
the Mississippi Co. 71; his 
Company begins work in Val- 
ley, 103. 

Laws, first in Kentucky, 244. 

Lead ore, a profit on, 63; found, 
68. 



409 



Index. 



Lemos, see Gayoso. 

Levee, first built to hold the 
Miss. River to course, 106. 

Lewis, Gen. Andrew, his for- 
ces at battle of Point Pleas- 
ant. 218. 

Lexington, Ky., named in stir- 
ring fashion, 246. 

Limestone, Ky., (Maysville), 
when a tough town, 326. 

Linn, Lieutenant, married, 263; 
voyage up the Miss., 288. 

Little Turtle, whips St. Clair, 340. 

Livingston, Robert R., Jeffer- 
son writes to, 386; tries to pur- 
chase Louisiana, 388; said 
"only force can give us New 
Orleans," 393; buys Louisiana, 
394. 

Lochry, Col. Archibald, com- 
mand destroyed, 322. 

Logan, Indian Chief, family at- 
tacked, 215; starts on War 
Path, 217; famous speech, 222. 

Logan, Benjamin, a Kentucky 
.olonel, 325; raids Indians, 335. 

"Log Rolling," described, 235. 

Lomas Lumsford, 191. 

Losantiville, afterward Cincin- 
nati, 339. 

Losses of the forces on both 
sides in Indian wars, 179, 180. 

Louisburg captured, 151. 

Louisiana, named, 44; colony in, 
described, 61 et seq.; Inten- 
dant's business in, 61; Indians 
threaten, 63; starvation in, 63; 
Crozat in charge of, 64; popu- 
lation of, 66, 166; state of, 55, 
115; trade in, 167; Spain ac- 
quires, 162; French home life in, 
241; Napoleon secures, 384 et 
seq: Americans to buy, 390; 
purchased by Americans, 394; 
formal work of transfer, 396, 
397. 

Louisville, La Salle reaches, 10; 
founded, 207; fort at, 321. 

Louis XIV, acquires pre-emption 
rights in Miss. Valley, 44; 
smiles on La Salle, 45, 46. 
Louis XV. inherits bankrupt 

nation, 70. 
Luzerne, French envoy sent to 

support Spanish claim, 358. 

Lyman, General Phineas, at 

Natchez, 205; land grant to, 207. 

Lynch law on Frontier, 203, 211. 

Lythe, Rev. John, at primitive 

Legislature, 244. 
Madison, James, indicates a 
salutary precedent, 359; letter 
to Washington, 386. 
Mailed fist, 290. 
Marietta, Ohio, Indian mound 

at, 85; built. 337. 
Marbois, Barbe, notes condi- 



tions in America, 391; conducts 
negotiations for sale of Louis- 
iana, 394. 
Marin, Pierre Paul, Sieur de, 

leads expedition, 134, 135. 
Marin, Iberville's ship, 53. 
Marquette, Father, claims as 
a discoverer considered, 15, et 
seq.; Joutel belittles, 20; hi3 
account of Joliet's expedition, 
24; at St. Ignace, 16. 
Martin's Station, Ky., taken, 

290. 
Mascoso, Luis de, leads rem- 
nants of De Soto's band, 161. 
Mason, George, approves 
Clark's expedition to the Il- 
linois. 268. 
Massacre Island, named, 54. 
Matagorda Bay, supposed land- 
ing place of La Salle, 46; fort 
raided by Spanish, 49. 
Maurepas, Lake named, 55. 
Maurepas, a French statesman 

and writer, 56. 
Mayo, Col. William, surveyor, 

124. 
Maysville, Ky., 326. 
McAfee, James, George and 

Robert, 208. 
McConnel, brings news of war, 

246; killed, 263. 
McCulloch, Major Samuel, at 

Wheeling, 261. 
McGary, Mrs., one of women 

at Boonesborough, 240. 
McGarry, Major Hugh, bully, 

at Blue Licks, 310. 
McGillivry, Alexander, leads 

Indians, 363. 
McKee, Alexander, renegade, 

305; store destroyed, 352. 
Medicine men, 95. 
Memphis, Tenn., fort at, 373. 
Mercier, Father Francois le, 
leads expedition to Iroquois 
country, 8. 
Meskousing, now Wisconsin 

river, 17. 
Miami, Mich., La Salle's fort 
in, 36 Abnekis flee to, 40; a 
British fort on Maumee River, 
347. 
Michigan, region west of visited 
by Nicolet, 4; La Salle sends 
men to, 31. 
Milhet, John and Joseph, ar- 
rested, 165. 
Mingo Bottom, Ohio, raiders 

gather at. 299. 
Minor, Don Stephen, at Nat- 
chez, 376; sneaks away, 377. 
Miro, Gov., Don Bstevan, at 
New Orelans, 363; urges In- 
dians to war, 364; does not 
enthuse over American sub- 
jects, 370; transferred, 371. 

lO 



Index. 



Mississippi Company, floated, 71; 
land granted to, 112; begins 
work, 103; leaves Louisiana, 114. 

Mississippi Territory organized, 
379; kind of people that went 
to, 380. 

Mississippi River first seen, 1; 
tlie search for, 5, 7, 9, 14, 17; 
visited by Grosseilliers and 
Radisson, 7; first written men- 
tion by name, 8; discovered 
and described, 14; Indians on, 
19, 21; boats on, 22; La Salle 
plants forts along, 31; Iber- 
ville finds, 54; De Soto raid 
to, 157, et seq.; mouth dis- 
covered, 161; navigation free 
to British, 167; bids for settlers 
on lower, 205; closed to Brit- 
ish, 287-288; Spanish claim to, 
358; Spanish close, 359; efforts 
to open, 362; Franklin's view 
of, 385. 

Mississippi Valley, Marquette 
describes, 24; La Salle's plans 
to acquire, 37; claimed for 
France, 44; life in old valley, 
55; Law's descriptions of, 71; 
French in during 18th Century, 
125; English gain eastern 
watershed, 155; war losses in, 
180; British life in, 184; s ttlers 
in lower, 207; prosperity in ac- 
cording to kind of people, 242, 
322; explorations in, 337; Span- 
ish in, 363; movement to Ameri- 
canize. 370; Spain opens, 374; 
Americans get their own in, 
377-378; France buys part of, 
383; prosperity of in 1802, 388; 
purchased, 395-396; the Flag 
over all, 401. 

Missouri, mines in, 68. 

Missouri River, reached by Joli- 
et, 20; described, 20; small fort 
on, 63. 

Mitchegamea, a village, 22. 

Mobile Bay, visited, named and 
colonized, 60; traders go to 
New Orleans, 106. 

Spanish take, 289. 

Money, Continental, 321. 

Monroe, James, appointed to 
make treaty, 390; buys Louisi- 
ana. 394. 

Monso, Indian chief, enemy of 
La Salle, 36. 

Monsters on Mississippi, 16, 18, 
20; whirl-pool, 21. 

Montcalm, Gozon de Saint Ver- 
an, Louis Joseph, Marquis de, 
describes Indian doings, 149. 

Montreal, Que., frontier post. 8. 

Morales, Don Juan Venturo, 
breaks treaty, 388. 

Morgan, Col. George, gets Span- 
ish grant, 367. 



Mooney, James, 198; meets In- 
dians, 219. 

Morals, Indian, 93; French, 113, 
114, 116. 

Moravian Missionaries, deeds, 
98; and Ohio Indians, 216; the 
story of, 293; human wolves 
among, 300; saw justice, 311. 

Mounds, Indian, 85; saloon in 
one, 86. 

Moyne, Charles le, 52. 

Moyne, Father le, speech to 
Indians, 100. 

Muskingum River, Ohio, Chris- 
tian settlements on, 294. 

Napoleon, power in France, 38 <; 
idea of the Miss. Valley, 388; 
gets the true facts, 391; says 
the right thing, 392; and does 
it, 394; creates "a British 
rival," 393. 

Nashborough, Tenn., govern- 
ment and life at, 291. 

Nashville, Tenn., 68, 290. 

Natchez, Miss., (Rosalie) found- 
ed, 68, 113; wiped out by In- 
dians, 113; Gen. Lyman and 
families emigrate, to, 2 5; 
grants of land at, 207; garri- 
son at, 288; taken, 289. 359; 
str-iggle to hold, 369; Ellicott 
and Spanish at, 376; seized by 
citizpns, 376; Spanish leave, 
American at last, 377. 

Natchez Indians meet La Salle, 
44; in a panic over storm, 59; 
see Indiin summary, 76 et seq. 

Natchitoches, fort at, 68-69; colo- 
nists a., 103. 

"Natural rights," 357. 

Nau, Father, on "sea of bea- 
ver." 121. 

Nautilus, ship's captain held, 
348. 

Neely, Alexander, goes home, 
199. 

Nemacolin, blazes trail, 190. 

New Hampshire, adopts Consti- 
tution, 362. 

New Madrid, Missouri, post at, 
110: land grant at, 367. 

New Orleans, La., founded. 72- 
74; Law's colonists at, 104; 
Bienville af. 106; Ursuline Nuns 
at, 106; described by Sister 
Hochard. 107; trade freed, 114; 
ceded to Spain, by French, 155; 
transferred, 163; O'Reily at, 
165; population. 166; ship load 
of flour at. 168; manners at, 
170; smugglers in, 206; Jack- 
son at. 236; British ships seized 
at, 287; free to Americans by 
treaty. 374; customs receipts 
doubled. 382; Jefferson on, 386; 
ceded to U. S., 393; ceremonies 
of cession, 398. 



411 



Index 



New York free of raids, 122. 

Nicolet, Jean, Joins Champlain, 
3; fife among Indians, 3; ex- 
plores Lake Michigan region, 
4, 5. 

Nitca, Indian companion of La 
Salle, murdered, 48. 

Nolan, Philip, killed, 381. 

North Carolina cedes lands to 
Congress, 361; resumes control, 
362, adopts Constitution, 362. 

Oconee War, 363. 

O' Fallon, Dr. James, in the Val- 
ley, 370. 

Ogden, Amos, land grant, 207. 

Ohio Company, formed, 189 et 
seq.; absorbed, 195. 

Ohio River, (La Belle Rivierre, 
Ouabouskigou), La Salle vis- 
its, 11; La Salle passes mouth 
on Miss., 21; road to forks of, 
124; Valley claimed by Celor- 
on, 128; fort at forks of be- 
gun, 138; Wheeling head of 
deep water navigation. 204; 
400 families down in 1773, 205; 
desperadoes along. 211; people 
in the valley, 224, 236, 321; dan- 
ger in, 322; slavery in, 3 3 7; 
north side opened to settlers, 
353; type of people in, 380. 

Old Britain, Indian chief. 129; 
at Piqua, or Pickawillany, 136; 
defeated and eaten, 132; for- 
gotten, 135. 

O'Reilly, Don Alexandre, at 
New Orleans, 165; and Pollock, 
168; sails away, 168. 

Oswald, Richard, treaty maker, 
331; far-sighted perhaps, 370. 

Oswego. N. Y., founded, 122; 
captured, 151. 

Ouabouskigou. see Ohio river. 

Ouiatanon, Ind., now Lafayette, 
111. 

Overture, Toussainte l", at San 
Domingo, 384. 

Ozarks, (mountains in Missouri), 
De Soto at, 160. 

Pepin Lake, visited, 60. 

Packet service established on 
the Ohio, 380. 

Palatines, the buffer settle- 
ments of, 122. 

Parma, Duke of, 385. 

Pean. Chevalier, husband o f 
Madam Pean, 134; makes mon- 
ey, 154. 

Patton, James, 191. 

Pearl fisheries, sought, 56. 

Pelican, d' Iberville's frigate, 52. 

Penalvert, Bishop, 170. 

Penisseault. Maj. husband of 
Pean's mistress, 155. 

Pennsylvania heard from, 53; 
quarrels among people, 130; 



staked claims on New River, 

197. 
Pensacola, Fla., taken, 289. 
Peoria Lake, reached by La 

Salle, 43. 
Perier, Governor of Louisiana, 

burns Indians, 114. 
Petit, Father le, in regard to 

Indians, 95. 
Petroleum, spring described by 

priest, 8. 
Peyster, Arent Schuyler de, at 

Detroit, 289. 
Picture Rocks, first seen by 

whites, 20; described by Mar- 
quette. 20; Joutel at, 20-21. 
Pickawillany, or Piqua towns, 

130; English win Indians at, 

139; raided by Clark, 290. 
Pineda, Don Alonzo de, at mouth 

of Miss., 161. 
Pinchon, on Jefferson and U. S. 

people, 391. 
Pinckney. Thomas, 373. 
Pipe, Captain, in Crawford's 

raid. 305, 306. 
Piquet, Abbe, causes raids, 101. 
Pittsburg, region claimed b y 

French. 137; Wayne at, 344. 
Plet, Francois, lends La Salle 

money, 31. 
Point Pleasant, (at the junction 

of Ohio River and Great Kana- 
wha), battle of, 218. 
Poisson, Father du, describes 

people and country, 112. 
Pollock, Oliver, flour deal, 168; 

a patriot martyr, 285; permitted 

to send supplies up Miss., 288; 

gives good advice, 288. 
Pompadour, Madam, angered 

by Maurepas, 56; true ruler of 

France, 142; result of her rule, 

155-156. 
Ponchartrain, Lake, named, 55. 
Pontiac, his war, 171, 179; meets 

Croghan, 192; makes peace, 193. 
Pope Lieut. Piercy S., with El- 

licott, 375. 
Porcupine Policy, 385. 
Portage City, Wis., on the old 

carry, 17. 
Post, Charles Frederick, sent to 

Ohio Indians, 152; secures 

peace, 153. 
Potomac River, cabin on head 

of, 123. 
Potter, John, gives good advice, 

151. 
Poupet, W., merchant, arrested, 

165. 
Powell. Major J. W., best au- 
thority on Indian, 101. 
Prairie du Rocher, 111., 110. 
Presbyterian Church, Doak's, 

320, 362. 



412 



Index. 



Prescott, Gen. Richard, at New- 
port, 251. 

Presqu' Isle, (Erie, Pa.), 134, 175. 

Prestonburg, Ky., site of one of 
Boone's camps, 198. 

Price, Ensign, escapes Indians, 
175. 

Priestly, Dr. Joseph, hears 
from Jefferson, 391. 

Pi'isoners burned at New Or- 
leans by French. 114. 

Prudhomme, Pierre, lost a t 
Chickasaw Bluffs, 44. 

Puritans, drive out Abenakis, 
40. 

Putnam, Gen. Rufus, home 
maker, 336. 

Quakers, send Post to Indians, 
152; and Pontiac's war, 173; and 
Moravian Indians, 294; saw 
justice, 311. 

Quapaw. Indians, 22; their fate, 
23; seen through a real estate 
dealer's eyes, 88; and De Soto's 
band, 161. 

Quebec, founded by Champlain, 
2; its trade, destroyed by Iro- 
quois, 6; La Salle goes to, 9; its 
traders cowardly, 10. 

Quebec Bill, 196. 249. 

Quindre, Daigniau de, attacks 
Boonesborough, 264. 

Race Course at Shallow Ford 
Station, 244. 

Radisson, Pierre Esprit, (with 
Grosseilliers), 5; final word as 
to. 400. 

Randolph, Edmund, Sec. State, 
373. 

Ray. James, saves Harrodsburg, 
262. 

Raymond, Commandantof 
French post on Maumee, 131. 

Red Hawk murdered, 266. 

Red River, fortified, 68. 

Red Stone Old Fort. Pa., 326. 

Renault, Philip Francois, founds 
Galena, 111., 108. 

Richebourg, Capt., profligate, 
66. 

Riddle's Station, Ky., taken, 290. 

Riflemen. Prime. 258; at King's 
Mountain. 315-317; not desirable 
Spanish subjects. 370. 

Rio Grande, Spanish name of 
Mississippi, 1(K). 

Road, first wagon into the Great 
Valley, 139. 

Robertson, James, goes over the 
range, 2O0; leads party to "Wa- 
tauga Riv., 201; fights at Point 
Pleasant. 219; at Watauga, 257; 
goes into the woods, 290; sees 
need of settlement, 327; ready 
to join Spanish, 328; helps 
make Tennessee a state, 363; 
and the Spanish, 366. 



Rocheblave, a French officer in 

the British service at Kaskas- 

kia, 270, 272. 
Rogers. Major Robert, meets 

Pontiac, 173. 
Rosalie, (Natchez) attacked, 113. 
Rosenthal, Baron de, (John 

Rose), on Crawford's raid, 306. 
St. Anthony, bribed by Henne- 
pin, 32. 
St. Clair. Gen. Arthur, arrests 

Connelly, 212; at Marietta, 338; 

to fight Indians, 339; sick and 

defeated, 310. 
St. Francis River, 22. 
St. Genevieve, Mo., founded, 

111. 
St. Joseph, Ind., Kankakee por- 
tage, 111. 
St. Louis, Mo., founded, 162; 

riot at, 164; population 1769, 

166; attacked. 318. 
Saint-Lusson, Daumont de, sent 

to lake Superior after copper, 

14; takes possession of the 

West, 14. 
St. Phillippe, 110. 
St. Pierre Legardeur de, at Le 

Boeuf, 136. 
Salem, (Ohio) established, 294; 

Indians enticed, 300. 
San Domingo, French in, 384. 
Sandusky, Ohio, Moravians at, 

298. 
Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie, trade 

post on, 123. 
Sargent, Winthrop, to organize 

territory, 379. 
Sault Saint Marie, taken into 

French possession, 14. 
Sauville, Sieur de, 57. 
Savannah. Ga., captured, 313. 
Scalps bought, 101; reward for, 

151, 253; on Pittsburg streets, 

303. 
Schebosch, an Indian, chopped 

to pieces, 300. 
Schoonbrum, Ohio, established 

by Moravians. 294. 
Scotch-ilrish Presbyterians in 

Delaware 224. 
Seneca Indians, in Pontiac's 

War, 175. 
Sevier, John, on the frontier, 

257; at King's Mountain, 315; 

to organize a state west of 

AUeghanies, 361; fugitive from 

justice. 362; willing to join 

Spanish. 366. 
Shallow Ford Station, had first 

race course in Kentucky, 244. 
Shelbv, Isaac. Gov. of Ken., at 

Point Pleasant, 221. 
Shelby, Capt. Evan, 218; saves 

day at Point Pleasant, 220; at 

King's Mountain, 315. 



413 



Index. 



Shelbourne, Lord, prefers Ameri- 
can neighbors, 332. 

Sherrill, Kate, escapes Indians, 
marries Sevier, 257. 

Ship Island, in Gulf of Mexico, 
settled, 60. 

Short, William, commissioner to 
negotiate treaty with Spain. 
373." 

Simcoe, Lieut. Gov. John 
Graves, invades U. S., 347; re- 
sponsible for Indian suffering's, 
349. 

Simcoe, Lake, on one route to 
Georgian Bay, 43. 

Sinclair, Lt. Gov., sends to take 
St. Louis, 318. 

Sioux, (Nation of the Ox), visi- 
ted by Grosseilliers and Radis- 
son, 7. 

Slaves, first large importation 
into Louisana, 104; in New 
Orleans. 166. 

Slover, John. 308. 

Smallpox, among Indians, curi- 
ous case, 291. 

Smugglers, 206. 

Smith, James, at Ft. Duquesne, 
143; describes Braddock's de- 
feat, 146. 

Soldiers, La Salle's best of the 
day, 30; Bienville describes, 
116; a mutiny among, 116. 

South Bend, Ind., site of Fort 
Miami, 36. 

South Carolina Company, 370. 

South Sea, search for, 15; In- 
dians tell of a tributary of. 21. 

Spencer first settled at Nash- 
ville, Tenn., 290. 

Spirit of the American Nation, 
186. 

Spotswood, Gov., claims the 
West for English, 75. 

Stanwix, Fort, treaty of, 209. 

Starved Rock, Fort on, 45. 

Station Camp Creek, K y., 
Boone's skin hunters camp 
on, 198. 

Stephen. Adam, 141. 

Sterling, Capt., takes possession 
of Fort Chartresfor British, 207. 

Stephens, a trader, attack on 
his canoe by Cresap, 213. 

Stoddart, Capt. Benjamin, tells 
of French expedition, 134. 

Stony Point, the hero of, 342. 

Strachey, British commissioner, 
in, 1783, found peace-making 
sad. 333. 

Strobo. Robert, an American 
prisoner in Fort Duquesne, 143. 

Stuart. John, with Boone, 198; 
bones found, 199. 

Stump speeches. 327. 

Suffolk, Earl of, advises tor- 
ture, 253. 



La Sueur comes to Louisiana, 
59; reaches Lake Pepin, 60. 

Lake Superior visited, 3. 

Sugar, introduction of manufac- 
turing, 168. 

Sylph, warship at Manchac, 288. 

Symmes, John Cleve, settles 
Cincinnati, O., 338; on St. 
Clair's troops 343. 

Talon, Jean Baptiste, "Inten- 
dant" of Canada, determines 
to spread French power, 9 
chooses La Salle to do it, 11 
sees value of the West, 13 
sends Daumont de Saint-LuS' 
son to Lake Superior to hunt 
copper, 13-14; chooses Joliet 
to head Miss, expedition, 14. 

Taylor, Hancock, 208. 

Tea iParty, 247. 

Tennessee, state building, 361; 
troubles of, 361-362; state made, 
363; population, of (1790-1800), 
380. 

Tomahawk claim, 204. 

Tonti, Henry de. La Salle's as- 
sistant, 32; reports mutiny at 
Fort Crevecoeur, 39; La Salle 
describes, 43; goes to Gulf in 
canoe, 55-59. 

Todd. Col., at Blue Licks, 310. 

Toronto, La Salle in its harbor, 
43; trading station at, 122. 

Traders, daring, 1; jealousy 
and cowardice, 10; sneer at 
good work, 11; their one 
thought, 82; when traders 
came to Indian camps, 99; 
stock in trade, 110; British 
traders, 123; British attacked 
in Valley, 125; scalps of, 135; 
English traders at New Or- 
leans, 166-167; British and In- 
dians, 172; at Vincennes, 192; 
helped by Indians, 217; in 
peace treaty, 333; Spanish tra- 
ders' goods seized, 335. 

Transylvania Company, 225, 243, 
245. 

Treaty and treaties— C h a m p- 
lain's with Iroquois, 2; Nico- 
let's at Sault Sainte Marie, 4; 
JoUet with Illinois, 19; Joliet 
with Quapaws, 23; Frontenac 
with Iroquois, 28; English and 
French. 155; by Sir William 
Johnson, 182; at Logston, 191; 
at Fort Stanwix, 193, 209; with 
Cherokees, 194. 203, 204; by 
Dunmore, 221; Boone's at Syca- 
more Shoals, 225; at end of 
American Rev., 331; at Fort 
Finney, 335; Jay's with Eng- 
land. 358; U. S. and England, 
358, 372; with Spain. .374; of 
Amiens, 388; for purchase of 
Louisiana, 394-396. 



414 



Index. 



Trent, William, with "Washing- 
ton, on expedition to build fort 
at the forks of the Ohio, 138. 
Triggj Col., killed, Blue Licks, 

310. 
Trinity River, Texas, reached 
by La Salle, 48. 

Trudeau, Zenon, grants Boone 
Land in Missouri, 381. 

Tryon, Governor, revolt against, 
202. 

Twitty, Capt., killed, 226. 

Two Oceans Creek, 21. 

Union, as dry wall, 360; loose 
conglomerate solidifying, 362. 

Unzaga, Louis de, in charge at 
New Orleans, 168; marries 
French lady, 1G9; permitted 
British ships at New Orleans, 
2S8. 

Utica, 111., site of La Salle's fort, 
45. 

Ursuline Nuns open School at 
New Orleans, 106; Sister 
Hochard's description of New 
Orleans. 106; Spanish Ursuline 
Nuns, 169. 

Ulloa, Don Antonio de, at New 
Orleans, 163, et seq. 

Van Braam, Washington's in- 
terpreter, 140-141. 

Vandalia, a proposed colony 
west of Alleghanies, 195; In- 
dians disappointed. 217. 

"Vaudreuil, Marquis de, succeeds 
Bienville, at New Orleans, 115; 
raids the English, 121. 

Venango. Pa., French star t 
from, 138. 

Vente, Curate de la, a priest 
leader, 62. 

Vergennes, Count Charles Gra- 
vier de, French Minister, atti- 
tude toward U. S., 357. 

Victor, Gen. Claude Perrin, in 
command of a force that was 
to conquer Miss. Valley, 388. 

Vigo, Francois, fate of a good 
American, 285. 

Villier, arrested at New Orleans 
for treason, 165; Madam Vil- 
lier, her bed room described, 166. 

Villiers, Coulon de, attacks 
Washington, 140; bums fort 
Grandville, 150. 

Vincennes, Ind., established, 112; 
the French at, 192; surrenders 
to Clark, 274. 

Virginians, with Braddock, 145; 
Dunmore's Virginians, 218; as 
"Long Knives," 265. 

Virginia, thanks Clark, 284; 
grants Kentucky's demands, 
361; adopts Constitution, 362. 

Wabash River. French on. 111 
et seq.; Croghan visits, 191-192; 



British raid down, 275; Clark's 
work along, 277 et seq. 

Wabasha, Sioux Chief, 318. 

Waddell, Capt. Hugh, Leads 
expedition against Cherokees, 
198. 

Wages, frontier, 51, 245, 

Walker, Dr. Thomas, 12 4; 
reaches head of Cumberland, 
189. 

Walker, Felix, wounded, 226. 

Walnut Hills, (V i c k s b u r g. 
Miss.), Spanish leave, 377. 

Walpole grant, 195. 

Ward, John, 198. 

Ward, Nancy, squaw, saves 
woman, 256. 

Ward, Ensign, begins fort at 
Forks of Ohio, 138. 

Washington. George, sent to 
French in Ohio, 136; sent to 
Will's Creek, with militia. 138; 
whips Jumonville, 139; attacked 
by Villiers, 140; surrenders, 141; 
covers Braddock' s retreat, 146; 
remembered twenty years 
later, 147; as to King's Proc- 
lamation. 187; in the Ohio Val- 
ley, 196; on St. Clair's Expedi- 
tion, 339; describes Wayne, 
343; wisdom of, 359; and South 
Carolina Company, 370; de- 
feats French plans for raid 
down Miss. Valley, 372. 

Washington College, T e n n., 
founded, 320. 

Watauga, Tenn., settlements, a 
no-man's-land, 201 et seq.; In- 
dians in, 255-256. 

Waterford, Pa., (fort La Beuf), 
134, 175. 

Wayne, General "Mad An- 
thony," 341; Washington de- 
scribes, 345; his men, 343-344; 
as the right man, 348; destroys 
Indian corn, 349; at Fallen 
Timbers, 350; his title "Miad 
Anthony," etc., 351; garrisons 
Fort Massac, 372; salutary ex- 
ample, 391. 

Wetzel, Lewis, borderer, 328; 
and his rifle, 344. 

Wheeling Creek, the Z a n e 9 
come to, 204; Dunmore's war 
begins at, 213; attacked, 260; 
whiskey at, 325. 

Whiskey, first export of K e n- 
tucky, 325. 

Wilderness road, 226. 

Wilkinson, James, infamous 
traitor, 285, 360; and Spanish, 
364-365; and Connolly, 3 6 7; 
recommends O'Fallon. 370; and 
Gayoso, 374; sends Guion to 
take U. S. Territory, from 
Spanish, 377; at Louisiana 
transfer, 398. 



415 



Index. 



Williamfion. Col. David, de- 
scribed, 299; in Crawford's raid, 
304. 

Willing, Clark's Gunboat, 277. 

"Whitney cotton gin, 380. 

Winnebago lake, Wis., the 
Country south and west of, 17. 

Wisconsin (Meskousing) River, 
Joliet reaches, 17. 

Wolf Hills fort, gets scalps, 257. 

Wolf, Gen. James, at Louisburg, 
151; at Quebec, 154, 155. 

Women, adventurers, on Miss. 
River, 113; home of wealthy in 
New Orleans, 166; first in Ken- 
tucky, 240. 

Wythe, George, a Virginia 



patriot, approves Clark's plan 
to invade Illinois, 268. 

Yazoo, Miss., Colonists at, 104; 
Fraud, 373, 

Yellow Creek Massacre, 215. 

Yoder, Jacob, early whiskey 
dealer, 325. 

Zane, Ebenezer, Silas and Jona- 
than, to Wheeling, 204; their 
followers, 210; one of them 
kills a big buffalo, 237; at the 
attack on Wheeling, 261; Jona- 
than, guide for Crawford's 
raid, 304. 

Zeisberger, David, Moravian, 
missionary, 216. 

Zinc Mines, 68. 




416 



UAg?9 



